


Unpack My Heart With Words

by thefutureisbright



Series: All The World's A Stage [1]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Theatre, Blowjobs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, M/M, References to Shakespeare, Slow Burn, Smut, Swearing, a metric fuck tonne of references to shakespeare and other dramatists, friends to lovers to strangers to enemies to friends to lovers to ??, it's complicated my dudes, sort of ???, they're not really enemies at any point but they don't like each other !!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2019-12-25 11:47:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18260651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefutureisbright/pseuds/thefutureisbright
Summary: He had this dressing room to himself, something about the lead always gets the biggest room to themselves, that’s just how it works, Richie, are you sure you’ve done this before? Obviously, he had done this before, plenty of times actually, Claudius (He’d forgotten the actors real name). This time was different, though. This time Richie was carrying the show on his shoulders – Atlas carrying the Earth –  and he could already feel the very specific set of hypercritical eyes boring into his soul.[or: Richie has moved to Britain and is cast as the lead in the semicentenary Royal Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet. Too bad the creative director of the RSC doesn't like him very much.]





	1. Greetings and Salutations

It was opening night of the semicentenary production of _Hamlet,_ and Richie had already been sick twice. The dressing room (well, it wasn’t really a dressing room, more like a dressing _mansion_ ) was uncomfortably hot as he paced up and down the room repeating the same phrases over and over.

 

Richie hadn’t always wanted to act. When he was seven, and his Aunt had asked the question Aunt's always ask to their young nephews, ‘ _What do you want to be when you grow ‘oop?’_ in her Canadian lilt, Seven year old Richie had replied ‘ _I wanna be a knight!’._ His mother had shut that one down pretty quickly.

 

He had this dressing room to himself, something about _the lead always gets the biggest room to themselves, that’s just how it works, Richie, are you sure you’ve done this before?_ Obviously, he _had_ done this before, plenty of times _actually, Claudius_ (He’d forgotten the actors real name). This time was different, though. This time Richie was carrying the show on his shoulders – Atlas carrying the Earth –  and he could already feel the very specific set of hypercritical eyes boring into his soul.

 

 

~*~

 

_The Royal Shakespeare Company Presents its Semicentenary Celebration Performance Of_

**_Hamlet_ **

_Directed by Edward James Kaspbrak_

_Main Cast:_

_Hamlet – Richard Tozier_

_Ophelia – Mike Hanlon_

_Claudius – Ben Hanscom_

_Old Hamlet’s Ghost – TBA: Under Discussion_

_Gertrude – William Denbrough_

_Horatio – Stanley Uris_

_Laertes – Adrian Mellon_

_Polonius – Reginald Huggins_

_Rosencrantz – Victor Criss_

_Guildenstern – Patrick Hockstetter_

_All other minor roles to be contacted shortly._

 

 

 

‘Well, _shit_ ’

 

* * *

 

When Richie had auditioned for the role of Hamlet, it hadn’t been anything more than a pipe dream. He’d been in a few productions, sure, but he’d never been the lead. The first theatre job he’d landed was not so much a job, and more a complete accident. He’d been fourteen, and the high school drama teacher had decided to convince a bunch of apathetic teenagers that, really, what would solve all their adolescent troubles was to audition for a play that amplified teenage angst and injected it with steroids.

 

Jessica Bourdain, who graduated from Juiliard in 1987 with a BA in Acting, was the most sincere person you’d ever meet. She tried, she really did. However, no amount of genuine sincerity could convince her students that they absolutely _must_ audition for the role of JD in her slapdash production of _Heathers_. That’s when Richie had sauntered through the wrong door, at precisely the wrong time ( _he was actually looking for his history lesson_ ). Ms Bourdain had sprung up in her seat – where, before, she had been slumped dramatically over the table whispering something to herself. (Richie couldn’t hear what she was whispering, but he’d assumed it was something dramatic and melancholy) – and proclaimed, like only an actress can, ‘ _It’s you! My Jason Dean!’_ and vaulted towards him.

 

Richie, who had never actually had any contact with Ms Bourdain before today,  just looked panicked before backing away slowly rambling ‘uh, my name’s Richie? Richard? I’m not – Jason isn’t my –’

 

‘I know you’re not Jason _yet,_ but my dear boy you will be soon!’

 

That’s how, with no previous acting experience and all because he was too polite ( _or scared?_ ) to say no, Richie ended up spending every lunch time and after school in the tiny drama hut on the outskirts of the playing field leering at the timid girl playing Veronica.

 

On the opening night of the school production of _Heathers_ Richie had been so nervous he’d thrown up four times. Once he’d not been quick enough to the toilet and had actually been sick on Veronica’s shoes. She screamed so loudly he nearly burst into tears. This, apparently, wasn’t enough to deter him from auditioning for the school play the following year.

 

After sauntering around the stage dressed in a leather coat five times too big, and speaking in an accent five times too terrible, Richie had caught the bug. He’d been infected. Richie Tozier was now a _thespian, darling, it’s called a thespian – No Dave, I do NOT mean lesbian, get back to your monologue, you’ve barely written a damn thing!_

That’s what Ms Bourdain had called him. A ‘Thespian’. Richie just preferred to think of himself as someone who played pretend professionally. He enjoyed the alliteration.

 

After _Heathers,_ came _Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,_ and then a weird detour to a sketchy adaptation of Moby Dick (Richie sometimes wonders if those curtains ever did dry off properly). Time after time, Richie would stand in front of Ms Bourdain and some bored looking drama students, and read passages from Shakespeare. It was always Shakespeare. His favourite piece to read was from _The Tempest,_

 

 _‘These our actors,_  
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and  
Are melted into air, into thin air:  
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,  
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,  
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,  
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,  
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,  
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff  
As dreams are made on; and our little life  
Is rounded with a sleep.’

 

Richie thinks about that passage a lot, even now. ( _Especially now, when he’s physically shaking with nerves, with the stupid Jacobean ruff constricting around his neck. He still has no idea why the wardrobe manager thought the juxtaposition of the ruff with the industrial looking black trousers and combat boots actually made any sort of statement. Richie just felt like an arse_ ). 

 

Richie never really gave much thought to what he was doing on stage, whether it held any significance to his life, whether it was something he wanted to continue outside of the confines of the school, until Ms Bourdain slid a leaflet under his nose whilst he was trying to memorise Zazu’s lines in  ‘ _I just can’t wait to be king’._

 

_Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts_

 

* * *

 

 

Richie had walked into the audition for _Hamlet_ with the intention of reading for Horatio. Obviously, having never played the lead in a play before, he wasn’t arrogant enough to attempt the role of the Danish Prince. He’d be on stage for nearly 4 hours. That was never going to happen. He’d read the script they’d be working with, and it was almost word for word the entire play, verbatim. Even the bits with Reynaldo. All of it.

 

But, as was the will of the world, because he’d been pretty lucky with all of his previous roles, Richie was due some truly awful luck. He walked into the room, prepared to launch into the Lady Macbeth soliloquy from Act I Scene V when the woman behind the baroque desk simply sighed and asked him who he was reading for. When Richie had energetically informed her ‘ _Horatio, ma’am’_ she’d only sighed even louder.

 

‘Didn’t Joshua tell you? We just cast Horatio. You can go home now.’

 

Richie just stood there, mostly confused but also more than a bit put out. He’d spent weeks perfecting his ‘ _evil lady who isn’t really evil and is probably mostly just very annoyed she lives in a patriarchal society where she can’t achieve legitimate power for herself so she has to acquire it voyeuristically’_ voice. He thought he’d nailed it.

 

The woman sighed again, for the third time, which Richie thought was truly unnecessary, before flicking through the papers on her desk.

 

‘Where do you come from?’

 

‘Uh, where do I – America? Well, I mean, I obviously don’t live there anymore. I live i–’

 

‘No, where do you _come_ from? What school?’ The woman stared at Richie, incredulous. He was standing there, clutching his dog-eared copy of Macbeth, feeling hyperaware of his body. And his dirty converse on the pristine carpet of the audition room. Really, there was no need for such a fancy carpet – he’s digressing.

 

‘I’ve just graduated from RADA. It says so on my –’ he gestures towards the papers in front of the woman (Claire, her name is Claire. Henry told him that yesterday, that he’d be auditioning for Claire, the Artistic Director of the RSC who is about to leave and start her own bee keeping business. What a weird career change. She doesn’t look like the kind of woman who’d keep bees – He’s digressing again.)

 

Richie gestures towards the papers in front of Claire, who simply picks up the piece of paper with Richie’s headshot on the front and puts it straight down again, without looking at it.

 

‘Ah. Yes. Have you read Hamlet before, Richard?’

 

‘Yes, I have. I studied it at high school. I particularly enjoyed studying Ophelia and –’

 

‘Yes, yes, I’m not interested in that.’

 

She sighs, for the twenty-fifth time.

 

‘I haven’t cast the lead. I can’t find the right Hamlet. Every one that reads is just. They’re wrong, Richard. They don’t have it. They come into my room and they stomp around, bellowing the lines like amateurs. They simply cannot grasp the complexity, the nuances of this role. I, regretfully and against my own will, might I add, agreed to cast this performance as penance for leaving. Now, have you _read_ _Hamlet,_ Richard? Have you really _read_ it?’

 

Richie stared at her.

 

‘ I mean – I guess I have – I’ve _tried_ to read it?’

 

Claire looks almost amused, like she’s just seen someone she doesn’t really like fall over in front of her.

 

( _Richie is probably someone she doesn’t really like and he’s probably about to fall over_ )

 

‘Interesting answer. What did you bring with you to read?’

 

‘Lady Macbeth, ‘ _The Raven himself is hoarse’_ etcetera’ _._

‘No. I don’t want you to read that.’

 

Claire stands up, and walks to a nearby bookshelf. She floats her fingers gracefully along the spines of beautiful cloth-bound editions, before finally landing on one with a theatrical ‘ah-ha!’ Obviously, the book she pulls lovingly from its resting place is _Hamlet._  She sits back at her desk, and holds the volume out to Richie, expectantly. He trips over his own feet on his way to take it from her hands.

 

‘I want you to read Hamlet’s soliloquy, the famous one. Find it. Read it.’

 

Richie can tell that she will be counting the seconds it takes him to find the soliloquy, and leafs through the text at top speed. He finds the soliloquy in what feels like seventeen hours, but is probably more like seventeen seconds.

 

‘Shall I just –’

 

‘That’s not how the soliloquy starts, Richard.’

 

 _Right_ , Richie thinks to himself. There isn’t enough time to panic. There is barely enough time to breathe. So he doesn’t. He just starts.

 

* * *

 

 

When he’d finished, Claire looked totally – utterly – bored.

 

‘Thank you, Richard. You’ll hear from me before the week is out. Probably’

 

Richie didn’t move. He felt shell-Shocked, almost hungover.

 

‘Are you going to leave?’

 

He swivelled on his heel, stuttered a fragmented ‘th-thank you’ and left the room.

 

_What the fucking fuck was that._

 

* * *

 

 

Richie floated through London in a daze. Past Covent Garden, past the weird little fountain that he got soaked in one time when he’d been standing on its rim, drunk, and delivered a particularly impassioned rendition of Blanche’s speech from _A Streetcar Named Desire,_

 _‘_ _I, I, I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! So big with it, it couldn't be put in a coffin! But had to be burned like rubbish!’_

 

Really, it was entirely inappropriate for the occasion, and yet Richie still thinks it was one of his most impressive deliveries.

 

(In reality, Bev had said Richie sounded like a garbled goose. Richie had laughed at the alliteration).

 

When he got back to his flat, Richie couldn’t bring himself to eat. He could bare to do anything more than collapse on his bed (it was a mattress on the floor) and scream into his pillow. Really, he was unsure why this particular audition had affected him so much. It was probably that stupid Claire (not that she’d done anything more offensive than sigh a lot) or that stupid distracting baroque desk (are desk’s really distracting? _Come on_ )

 

He was unsure of how much time had passed, with him lying morose on his bed before his phone pinged. It was an e-mail, probably groupon or something equally annoying. He didn’t check it when he half-heartedly read through the script for the next audition he had lined up, and didn’t check it when he was boiling some pasta and broccoli in an effort to be healthy (the pasta burnt and the broccoli went soggy so he ordered Chinese). He didn’t check it when he showered and belted out a melody from _The Phantom of the Opera_ (Richie’s operatic voice left much to be desired).

 

Richie forgot about the email until three in the morning, half asleep and half watching some ridiculous cartoon on Netflix about talking otters, when he randomly felt compelled to check the email.

  

**From: ClaireVandeCamp@RSC.co.uk**

**To: RichieRich@outlook.com**

**Subject: You read Hamlet**

****

Richard,

 

You are expected to report to the Stratford theatre at 7am on Wednesday.

 

 

* * *

 

Richie had expected to be met by someone in the foyer of the theatre when he’d arrived on Wednesday, but when he’d tried to open the door it’d been locked. He tried three times before giving up, assuming he was the first to arrive, and sitting on the steps to wait for someone else to arrive.

 

7:04am

 

7:12am

 

7:32am

 

Richie was growing anxious, bouncing his leg up and down erratically. He was sure the e-mail from Claire had said 7am. It had. He’d checked it fifty times. He checked it again. It did, indeed, say 7am.

 

So Richie waited.

 

‘ _for fucks sake – Why_ are you sat here? The matinee isn’t until 2pm, the box office doesn’t open until 1pm what are you doing sat there?’

 

Richie jumped and fell of the stair he was sat on.

 

‘I’m sorry, I got here at 7am because I was told to come because I’d read Hamlet and no one was in, I mean, I couldn’t open the door? and I didn’t want to just leave because I didn’t know where I’d go? And – ’

 

Richie turned around, face scarlet, to come face to face with – someone.

 

_Oh FUCK_

* * *

 

Richie had enjoyed his time at RADA. Really, he had. He’d thought the move from America to the UK would be nothing short of traumatising, but he’d adjusted well. He was used to the rain, and the fact that cigarettes are called fags and that British people don’t like to talk to each other on the tube. Well, he’d _mostly_ enjoyed it. He’d enjoyed _most_ of it. The parts he really hadn’t enjoyed could be summarised in three words – Edward James Kaspbrak.

 

When Richie had auditioned for the role of Horatio, he had no idea who the new artistic director of the RSC was going to be. He knew that Claire was leaving, because Bill had told him, but Bill hadn’t told him who was replacing her. He hadn’t thought much of it, really. Perhaps he should have paid more attention.

 

‘ _Are you kidding me_ – YOU’RE my Hamlet? She’s sent me _YOU? I swear to God –_ Right. Well. Get inside – no, not THAT door, the door where – just follow me’. Eddie stormed off, scarf trailing behind him, and left Richie spluttering in his wake.

* * *

 

Edward James Kaspbrak was a prodigy. He was the next Olivier. Except for how horrifyingly, paralysing, his stage fright was. Eddie was a technically superb actor, could deliver a heart-breaking Mickey Johnstone and a rousingly funny Benedict. Everyone told him that he was going to be the next big thing. The only problem, the only _minor_ problem – and Eddie really _had_ thought it was only going to be minor – was that every time he was expected to perform in front of an audience bigger than ten, he choked.

Edward James Kaspbrak was a prodigy, but also a massive, painful, failure.

 

* * *

 

When Richie started at RADA, eager eyed and bushy tailed, he’d instantly gravitated towards the workshops on seventeenth century drama. He’d signed up for as many classes as the scheme of study would allow, and threw himself head first into everything he did. Richie had made a few friends, here and there – including Bev and Georgie, two other Americans – but when he’d walked into his seventeenth century tragedy workshop, he immediately knew that he and the curly haired boy in the corner belting ‘ _A New Argentina’_ with an impressive tenor were destined to be best friends.

The tutor for the class was called Jacques. He was a balding French man, who Richie guessed had to be around one hundred and five years old. The first class was dedicated to _Romeo and Juliet,_ especially the particular exchange between the titular characters in Act II Scene II. Richie was prepared. He’d read _Romeo and Juliet_ seven times. He’d watched every available performance on YouTube. He’d done this for every one of Shakespeare’s plays because – they’re _Shakespeare._

Jacques assigned each person as Romeo or Juliet, and made all the Romeo’s stand on the right side of the room, and all the Juliet’s on the left side. He then began assigning pairs, based on whether he thought you ‘looked right together’. This was obviously very important. Jacques made quick work of the exercise, and soon the only people left unassigned a partner were Richie, and another boy on the opposite side of the room.  The boy was the tenor from before, and Richie was secretly ecstatic.

The first thing the tenor had said to Richie when they’d sat down together to practice the passage was ‘I fucking _hate_ Romeo and Juliet’.

Richie instantly fell in best friend love.

* * *

 

Several days– several excruciating days dedicated to _Romeo and Juliet_ – later, and Richie had built a quick bond with the tenor, who he now knew was called Stan. They’d planned on staying after class to work on the passage (well, Richie pretends its working, what it mostly consists of is Stan ranting about how much he hates _Romeo and Juliet,_ and Richie making sympathetic non-committal noises, whilst harbouring a secret love for _‘The most clichéd, ridiculous play ever written, seriously Richie, it’s absurd’._

 

They’d stayed until half seven, eyed bleary, before Stan had decided that enough was enough, they needed caffeine to keep staring at the exchange between the love-sick teenagers. Richie had agreed, perhaps too enthusiastically, and bounded down the stairs two at a time.

 

‘Oh shit, sorry Stan the Man, but I think I left my wallet in the rehearsal room. Can you wait here a sec?’

 

Stan agreed, reluctantly, and Richie scurried off to retrieve his wallet. As he was walking down the hallway, humming the song he’d heard Stan singing the first time they’d met, he stopped. Richie skidded to a half on the polished wooden floor ( _yes, he skidded to a halt, as dramatic and ridiculous as that sounds_ ) and stared into rehearsal room 3.

 

In the room stood a boy. He was around 5 inches shorter than Richie, with dark hair cropped on the sides but long on the top, with a distinct wave. He was stood in centre stage, in almost complete darkness save for the lone spotlight aimed directly at him. He was speaking. Well, speaking wasn’t exactly the right word.

 

 _‘Ay, every inch a king:_  
_When I do stare, see how the subject quakes._  
_I pardon that man's life. What was thy cause? Adultery?_  
_Thou shalt not die: die for adultery!’_

 

Richie had never seen him before. He wasn’t in his seventeenth-century tragedy workshop, at least, Richie didn’t think he was. He would have remembered him. He would have remembered that _voice,_ that _face._ The boy continued, now striding around the stage, in and out of the glare of the spotlight. He was wearing all black (which Richie thought was clichéd), so when he marched out of the gaze of the spotlight, the boy became nothing but disembodied words, echoing around the room in a bombastic , commanding tone:

 _‘No:_  
_The wren goes to 't, and the small gilded fly_  
_Does lecher in my sight …’_

Richie was mesmerised.

  
_‘… Let copulation thrive; for Gloucester's bastard son_  
_Was kinder to his father than my daughters – ’_

 

That’s when Richie fell over.

 

He’d been leaning against the door, shrouded by the darkness of the room. He had, however, not realised that the door wasn’t propped open on the doorstop, and promptly fell forward when it swung shut ( _stupid fucking fire doors_ ).

 

 _‘Got 'tween the lawful sheets_ – WHO THE _FUCK_ ARE YOU’

 

Richie stood up, face burning with the red hot heat that only someone caught doing something they shouldn’t experiences.

 

‘I was just – I left my wallet in the – your Lear is seriously _amazing,_ you know’ Richie gushed, brushing his hands on his jeans.

 

The boy just stared at him, face as red as Richie’s felt, before launching himself forward, stumbling slightly, and marching straight past Richie, out of the door and down the corridor.

 

Richie was left, standing there, staring at the spotlight on the stage that was now illuminating a solitary chair, and the packet of notes placed carefully on the top. Richie was still burning with embarrassment but the embarrassment was quickly being displaced by curiosity, and so he walked towards the chair and picked up the packet of notes.

 

**_E. Kaspbrak_ **

**_Seventeenth-Century Tragedy_ **

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Richie all but ran into his SCT workshop. He rushed his reading with Stan, standing in front of the class talking at fifty miles per hour, eyes constantly scanning the group of bored looking eighteen year olds, searching for one newly familiar face.

 

After he’d uttered the last syllable, Jacques immediately launched into a lengthy critique that would have, under ordinary circumstances, made Richie’s teeth ache with humiliation and regret, but the accented words slipped over his head in a silky, French toned wave.

 

Scanning the audience, Richie locked eyes with his Lear.

 

Lear held his gaze, face expressionless, challenging. Richie felt his face start to go as red as it had been the entire time he was in Lear’s presence yesterday. Jacques said something along the lines of _and now you, sit, sit and watch, sit watch how it is done properly_ , Richie wasn’t really listening. He returned to his empty chair, and could not remember how the rest of the class went.

 

After Jacques dismissed the class, Richie grabbed his rucksack and ran straight into the back of Lear.

 

‘Watch where you’re – oh. It’s you’

 

Richie had been running at his top speed ( _which, to be honest, isn’t much faster than his slowest_ ) in the hopes of lassoing Lear before he could slip out of the door, but of course, he’d just ran straight into the back of him instead.

 

Richie fumbled in his rucksack before pulling the large packet of notes out and handing them to Lear.

 

‘I’ve just been calling you Lear, because I didn’t know your name’

 

‘What do you mean you’ve been calling me Lear? You’ve never spoken to me’

 

‘I mean –‘ Richie realised that sometimes, just sometimes, it’s better to think before you speak, and announce to the most impressive Lear he’s ever seen that he’s been thinking about him.

 

‘I mean – I mean in my head? I’ve been calling you – Calling you Lear, in my head? Like, ‘Oh I must give these notes back to Lear –‘

 

Lear cut him off, with an unconvinced ‘Riiiiiight’, drawn out painfully.

 

Richie winced.

 

‘Thank you for the notes. I have to go now’ The thank you seemed almost – almost – sincere, and Richie saw what could the ghost of a smile break his stony expression, before he promptly turned on his heels and marched out of the door, the same march he’d used on the stage, when he’d all but transformed into King of Britain himself.

 

‘Eddie’

 

The word pulled Richie out of his head, and threw him back into reality, a reality where he was dumbly staring at his now empty hands.

‘But you can call me Lear if you like, I really don’t care’

 

And with that, he was gone.

 

* * *

 

The show was starting in twelve minutes. Richie hadn’t been sick again, but his stomach was convulsing unpleasantly. He could hear Eddie’s words echoing in his head, louder than his own voice methodically repeating the words of a stranger he’d spent the past four months making his own.

# ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire;

# Doubt that the sun doth move;  
Doubt truth to be a liar;  
But never doubt I love.’

 

The first time Eddie had repeated those words to Richie, sincerity dripping from his mouth like molasses, Richie had laughed in his face.

 

Eddie had been mortified, before he’d seen the happiness in Richie’s eyes, and then he’d laughed, albeit reluctantly, along with him. Richie had laughed and laughed, and Eddie had grown more and more jittery before Richie just called him a clichéd twat and threw himself at him.

 

Eddie wasn’t here now.  Eddie was somewhere else. Obviously, he was physically somewhere else, probably spitting venom at someone, like he always did when he felt overwhelmed with responsibility.  Eddie was also emotionally somewhere else. He wasn’t the same person he’d been when he’d said whispered those words into Richie’s ear all those years ago. Those words had been spoken by thousands, but they were words that, when Eddie had whispered them to Richie as they sat in uncomfortable cinema seats, felt like they’d been plucked from the sky itself.

 

At this point, Richie was bent double over the dressing table, palms flat on the cool mahogany, trying very hard not to cry.

 

* * *

 

 The seventeenth-century tragedy workshop was quickly becoming the highlight of Richie’s week. He’d been practically living in the library, pouring over the _Norton Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Drama_ , and drinking an absurd amount of coffee. His intellect thanked him, but his stomach loathed him. Richie was too elated to even care he spent most of his evenings with stomach ache.

 

He’d barely spoken to Lear. Since he’d found out his name, (‘ _Eddie, but you can call me Lear, I really don’t care’)_ Lear had spent most of the classes looking vehemently unapproachable. Richie, whilst often described as possessing an ‘annoyingly sunshiny disposition’ found the dark haired boy _juuuuust_ a little bit too terrifying. He wasn’t really sure why ( _that’s a lie, he absolutely knew why, and it was definitely because of his powerful voice, his dominant posture, and his pretty face. The juxtaposition was not lost on Richie_ ).

 

That’s why, when Jacques had decided that Marlowe’s  _Edward II_   was the perfect text to explore in the workshop, Richie had nearly cried when he’d been paired with Eddie. Jacques had been practically cackling with glee when he’d pulled them together. Richie hadn’t even been paying attention to Jacques quite frankly absurdly stereotypical French cackle, which would normally have amused him to no end, and had instead been staring directly at the floor, trying not to vomit. Richie had not been sure quite _why_ he was so nervous, until he’d seen Eddie’s level stare, directly at his face.

 

‘So, do you want to be Gaveston or Edward’

 

Richie blinked.

 

Eddie stared, raising his eyebrow slightly.

 

‘… so?’

 

‘Uh, I don’t mind, do you want to be Edward? I mean, it’s also your name so, like, it should be totally easy for you. And, obviously, you were such a good Lear, so maybe you’re just really –‘

 

‘Could we not talk about that, please’

 

Richie could feel his face almost throbbing with embarrassment. He was equal parts embarrassed at himself for bringing up the circumstances of their first meeting, and equally embarrassed that he was – _apparently –_ in a constant state of pure humiliation every time he saw Eddie. It was simply not fair.

 

‘We’re looking at their dynamic in Act One Scene Four, ‘ _My lord, I hear it whispered everywhere’_ blah blah blah. Do you want to be Edward? I’ll be Gaveston’ Eddie asked, flicking through the text to the relevant section. Richie just stared at his hands, leafing through the pages skilfully.

 

‘Yeah, yeah – whatever you like, I’ll be Edward’

 

That set the tone for the next few days. Eddie taking control of the way they would deliver the passage, and Richie dumbly nodding along. 

 

* * *

 

 

It took three days of them working together for Eddie to address the nickname.

 

‘I’d like you to stop calling me Lear’

 

Richie, who had been practicing what he thought was an excellent kingly tone ( _to everyone else it was basically just an aggressive shout, but to Richie, it was a bombastic commanding tone that Prince Charles would be jealous of. Prince Charles couldn’t command armies like his Edward II could. Richie was sure of it)_ , didn’t hear him at first.

 

‘Richie, are you listening to me?’

 

‘Huh?’

 

‘I’d like you to stop calling me Lear. I’d like you to call me Eddie.’

 

‘Oh, okay’

 

‘So I was thinking, we need to decide where you’re standing, I was thinking you should stand on a raised bit of stage, and I’d be staring up at you, as this will imply to the –‘

 

Richie wasn’t listening. He was watching Lear’s – _Eddie’s_ – mouth.

 

* * *

 

It was a Friday afternoon when everything went wrong.

Richie and Eddie had been making good progress with their interpretation of the implicit homoerotic relationship between Edward II and Gaveston, and every time Eddie so much as muttered a vaguely suggestive line in Richie’s direction he felt like his stomach was going to come barging its way out of his mouth, lassoed to a thousand butterflies. Richie had never read _Edward II_ before taking the class, but it was quickly becoming his favourite piece of drama.

 

As was customary in Jacques class, they had to perform the piece before the rest of the class. Something about ‘ _your peers are your harshest critics. Other than me. I am your harshest critic, of course, until you start booking jobs. Then Marianne from The Guardian is your harshest critic. Or Susan from The Times. Or Jacob from – Everyone is a critic. Everyone’._ Richie was still unsure how he felt about Jacques.

 

Richie hadn’t even been listening to Jacques properly ( _He was becoming aware that he had spent an awful lot of time not listening to people recently)_ as he’d been fixated on what Eddie was wearing. He looked positively regal, in a longline black tunic that was totally reminiscent of the Romantic era, paired with what looked like black leggings but could also have been jeans so tight they had been sprayed onto his legs and plain black Chelsea boots. Richie, in his plain blue jeans and white t-shirt, felt totally underdressed, despite the fact it was Eddie that was absurdly overdressed. When asked about what he was wearing, Eddie had simply replied that he was ‘method acting’, and getting into character. Richie had laughed, and insisted that Gaveston was probably not a fan of Byron. Eddie had just glared at him.

 

When it was their turn to present, Eddie had all but ran to the section of the room marked off with tape to represent the stage, standing stage left. Richie took his place at the center of the stage, dropping to his knees.

_‘How fast they run to banish him I love!_

_They would not stir, were it to do me good._

_Why should a king be subject to a priest?_

_Proud Rome! that hatchest such imperial grooms,_

_For these thy superstitious taper−lights,_

_Wherewith thy antichristian churches blaze,_

_I'll fire thy crazed buildings, and enforce_

_The papal towers to kiss the lowly ground!_

_With slaughtered priests make_

_Tiber's channel swell,_

_And banks rais'd higher with their sepulchres!_

_As for the peers, that back the clergy thus,_

_If I be king, not one of them shall live.’_

 

At this point, Eddie walked onto the stage, a look of determination on his face, but with something strange peeking from behind. A look of affection. Richie had never seen Eddie’s face look so soft, so unguarded.

 

_‘My lord, I hear it whispered everywhere,_

_That I am banish'd, and must fly the land.’_

 

Eddie had spoken his line softly, taking Richie’s hand and pulling him to his feet. Richie had almost forgotten how to stand, he couldn’t bring himself to stop looking at Eddie’s face. He spluttered his line, cringing at the tightness of his voice. He sounded anything but kingly, but everything the infatuated teenager. Jacques would later tell him that it was this aspect of Richie’s performance he most enjoyed, how ‘realistic’ his love-sickness seemed.

 

 

_‘‘Tis true, sweet Gaveston_

_O! were it false! …’_

 

From then on, Richie had worked on auto-pilot, his last line slipping from his mouth without so much as a second thought.

 

_‘I pass not for their anger_

_Come, let's go; O that we might as well return as go.’_

 

He stood, almost panting with the intensity of the extract they had just performed, with Eddie’s hand clasped in his. He had no idea when he had grabbed it, or when Eddie had given it to him. All he knew was that this was _not_ how they had practiced it. Before now, the only other person in the room had been Eddie. Not in reality, in reality there were about twenty-five other people in the room, all staring at Edward II and his Gaveston. But to Richie, for the last twelve minutes, he’d been suspended in time with Eddie. They were the only things that had existed in those few moments.

 

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted by thunderous applause. Well, it sounded thunderous because of the acoustics in the room, but Richie liked to think it was because of him.

 

It was then that he noticed it had been a solid minute since they had finished, and he was still clutching Eddie’s hand.

 

‘That was _wonderful,_ boys. Simply wonderful’

 

Richie was reminded that Jacques was still in the room.

 

‘Please do stay after the workshop, I have a proposition for you’

 

Eddie, who must have realised that he was still holding Richie’s hand, unclenched his fingers from around Richie's and returned to his seat. His face was flushed, and Richie wondered if Eddie had found the scene as intense as he had. Sitting next to Eddie, the rest of the workshop passed over Richie’s head, uneventful.

 

The reason everything went wrong was because Jacques had suggested, after bouncing on his heels and clapping his hands together like an excited child, that Richie and Eddie perform their interpretation of the relationship between Edward II and Gaveston in the RADA winter recital. Richie was thrilled, and fully expected Eddie to feel the same way. After all, Eddie was not exactly the kind of person that seemed weighed down with modesty.

 

But when Jacques had left the question hanging in the air, and Richie had immediately voiced his interest, Eddie’s face had gone pallid, and he simply said

 

‘No.’

 

And walked out of the room.

 

* * *

 

It took Richie five minutes to find him.

 

Eddie was practically sprinting through the foyer at the front of the RADA building when Richie caught up with him, all but hauling Eddie’s body around to face him.

 

‘What the hell, dude?’

 

Eddie visibly blanched, before wrenching Richie’s hand from his arm.

 

‘What are you _doing_ , get off me’

 

‘Seriously, what the hell?’ Richie repeated.

 

Eddie took this opportunity to march straight out of the door. Richie swore under his breath, and ran after him. Eddie continued to march along the street, face ashen, and Richie swore he could see his fists trembling at his side.

 

‘Eddie, seriously. Slow. Down. Why don’t you want to do the recital?’ Richie asked, panting as he tried – almost in vain – to keep up. Eddie was all but running now, his messenger bag slamming against his hip. Richie absently thought about asking if he could carry it for him.

 

‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just don’t want to do the fucking recital. Leave me alone!’

 

Richie sighed, now irritable, and launched into a tirade about how Eddie was being selfish, and that performing in the recital could be good for both of them, and that Richie could really –

 

Eddie suddenly swung around to face Richie. Richie ran into Eddie’s chest, ricocheting off him like a bullet.

 

‘I want to do the recital’, Eddie said calmly, almost patronisingly, like the way you’d talk to a small child. ‘I want to do the recital, but I can’t’.

 

‘Oh’. Richie studied Eddie’s face for any indication that Eddie was feeling anything other than sheer annoyance. He couldn’t see anything. He debated just walking away, and leaving Eddie to his melodrama, but instead he pressed on with a cautious

 

‘Why?’

 

Eddie just sighed, and dragged his hand over his face, leaving it covering his eyes in an action that was almost submissive, avoidant.

 

‘I cannot do the recital because it will be in front of three hundred people’

 

Richie blinked. He was not expecting that.

 

‘I was expecting you to say that you didn’t want to work with me, that I was the reason you didn’t want to do the recital. I thought you were going to ask for another partner’ Richie replied flaty.

 

It was Eddie’s turn to blink.

 

‘Why on earth would you think that?’

 

‘I dunno. I guess because you’re so _good_ I couldn’t think of another reason you could possibly _not_ want to do the recital. What do you mean about the three hundred people? That’s not _THAT_ many, really’

 

‘It’s not that. We’re good together. It’s because – I just – I can’t’

 

‘Eddie. Just say it’

 

‘I fucking _choke,_ Richie. I fucking choke. I get up there, and I am the fucking embodiment of calm, I am a picture of collectedness, my heart is beating about twice a minute, and then I stand there – I stand there in front of those hundreds of people fucking staring at _me –_ Richie they are _staring_ at me. And I choke. I can’t do it, Richie. I’m sorry but –‘

 

Richie grabbed him. Richie had grabbed him by the shoulders in a unabashed, encompassing hug. Eddie had frozen, before tentatively bringing his arms around Richie’s middle, and clinging like a small child. His breathing was hot, heavy, and erratic. They had stood there, for what feels like five hours, but for what was probably only twenty seconds, before Eddie had suddenly wrenched himself from Richie’s arms and spun on his heels and stormed down the road, messenger bag still _bang bang banging_ at his hip with every step.

 

Richie had simply stared after him.

 


	2. I Have Always Depended On The Kindness Of Strangers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Have you cried on stage before?’ Richie asks, cautiously.
> 
>  
> 
> ‘Yes. Once.’ Eddie replies with a violent nod of his head.
> 
>  
> 
> ‘When?’

 

 

When Richie had first mentioned to his parents that he wanted to move to Britain to study drama they’d been apprehensive. His mother had panicked about the distance, and his father had complained about how much the tuition fees would cost. However, after Richie had adequately worn them down over several months and several meetings with his drama teacher, they’d tentatively agreed to send him overseas on what his father had called a ‘trial basis’. This meant that, should Richie’s grades drop below a B, or he commits a crime and ends up in British jail, he would be immediately called home and placed under near permeant house arrest, even though he was technically eighteen, and therefore an adult in the eyes of the law.

 

He’d found himself, then, bright eyed and bushy tailed, standing at the checking gate at the airport, arms wrapped tightly around his sobbing mothers neck.

 

‘You will call me, won’t you, Rich? You’ll call as soon as you land – you’ve got your cell, right? And your wallet? And your cards and your keys? And the phone number of the school? And you know how to catch a cab at the other end? Oh Jesus Christ, my baby will be in a whole damn different country!’ she wailed into his neck.

 

Richie laughed at his mother, and squeezed her impossibly tighter.

 

‘Mom, I’m coming home in three months! I’ll see you at Christmas, and you said you’d come over and visit in the summer next year so it’s not like you’re not going to see me for months and months you crazy old broad’

 

‘Hey!’ She replied, pulling away just enough to lightly smack his arm. ‘Less of the old broad, thank you. You’ve never been this far away from me before, Rich, I worry about you’

 

‘I know, I know, I’m gonna miss you too, but stardom beckons! Now gerr’off me, I think the old man’s getting jealous’

 

With that, Richie launched himself at his father, who caught his six-foot-something son with an ‘oof’ and a stagger.

 

‘Love you, kid. Go knock ‘em dead, show ‘em what us Maine boys can do’

 

‘You got it, squire’ Richie replied in a horribly executed London accent, tipping an imaginary top hat. His father laughed indulgently, pulling back to discretely wipe away the tear streaking down his face.

 

‘I’m gonna miss you so much, you lunatic. I’m so damn proud of you, kid’ his father said, so open and honest that Richie found himself having to choke back his own tears.

 

‘Love you too, dad. Now – I think that TSA agent is gonna stab me with his pen if I don’t get my sweet ass through that line so, I guess this is goodbye for now!’

 

Richie picked up his rucksack, shucking it onto one shoulder, before stepping away from his parents. His father slung an arm around his mother’s shoulders, and they both watched with tears in their eyes and pride in their hearts as their only child walked away from his parents for the first time in his life.

 

* * *

 

 

Jacques, the unsympathetic teacher that he was, did not let a silly little thing such as Eddie’s crippling stage fright influence his decision to threaten to force Eddie to withdraw from the programme should he choose not to perform the _Edward II_ extract with Richie in the winter recital. It was a choice, after all. Jacques had been crystal clear about that. Reluctantly, and with a face the colour of rage, Eddie had agreed to participate in the recital. Richie, who was still smarting after the equally confusing and heated encounter he’d had with Eddie in the street, wasn’t particularly enthused. Sure, he and Eddie did make a particularly compelling Edward and Gaveston, and sure, the reverential, almost sultry way Eddie called Richie ‘My Lord’ when crouched on his knees in front of him made Richie’s knees buckle and his voice catch in his throat.  Not that he’d admit that to anyone but his own head and maybe, _maybe,_ his right hand. Eddie was the rain that whips your face and the wind that chills your bones and Richie was not a fan of winter.

 

Stan found the whole situation hilarious.

 

‘So you’re stuck with him, then?’ he’d laughed when they’d been sat at one of the tables in the large practice room, working on some translations for the seventeenth-century tragedy class. Eddie was on the other side of the room, sat at an otherwise empty table. Richie had initially contemplated calling him over, but he was sure he could predict how that conversation would go.

 

‘Oh fuck off, Staniel. He’s not even _that bad,_ not once you’ve given him a chance. He’s just …’ Richie paused, gesticulating wildly in the air as he tried to search his brain for an appropriate word to describe Eddie.

 

‘Pretentious? Rude? Ridiculous? Offish?’ Stan offered.

 

‘Nope, none of those’

 

‘Conceited? Weird?’

 

‘Nope, none of those either’

 

Stan sighed, dramatically.

 

‘Well, whatever he is, I don’t know if I like him. He is bloody talented though, I’ll give him that I suppose’ Stan continued, taking a slurp from the straw in his coffee that he’d bought at the student’s union, before grimacing at the burnt taste. The café in the union always burnt their coffee beans, and Stan always, _always,_ complained about it before buying a large vanilla iced latte anyway. He always tried to defend his choice by insisting that it was too cheap not to. Richie thought he was ridiculous.

 

‘I guess I’m going to have to see him loads, now. He always looks at me like he hates me, though. Like, I shat in his shoes or something.’

 

‘Dude, gross’

 

‘It’s true! I thought we were getting on okay, and then Jacques had to mention us performing in that damn recital and now it’s like he can’t stand to be in the same room as me anymore.’

 

Stan hummed, contemplatively, eyes trained on the extract from _Esther_ they were supposed to translate into English _._

 

‘Maybe he fancies you’

 

‘You know I don’t understand your British slang, Staniel’

 

‘Let me translate for you then, you yank, I meant that maybe he wants to bone you, fuck you, suck your –‘

 

‘Oh, my love, you know that I am hopelessly devoted to you and you alone’ Richie replied, eyelashes batting furiously.

 

‘Fuck off, you twerp’ Stan laughed, brandishing his straw like a sword.

 

‘Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?’ Richie challenged, in a rather pathetic attempt at an Italian accent, brandishing his pen, faux-menacingly.

 

‘I do bite my thumb, sir’

 

‘Do you quarrel sir?’

 

‘Quarrel, sir? No, sir’ Stan continued, waving his straw wildly in the air.

 

They hit each other with their make-shift swords for a while, laughing like children, before Richie managed to knock Stan’s straw-sword out of his hand, and Stan held up his hands to indicate his surrender.

 

‘No, but seriously, if he’s gonna be all hoity-toity nasty boy, I think I’m gonna explode’ Richie moaned.

 

Stan just hummed knowingly, opening the large French to English dictionary on the table.

 

When Jacques calls the class back to the centre of the room to work on some extracts, Eddie is already there, hunched on a chair emitting ‘Danger! Danger! Do not approach!’ signals. Richie approached anyway.

 

‘Heya, Eds’ he said, announcing his presence as he slid into the empty chair next to Eddie. Eddie flinched, moving away from Richie as if on instinct. Richie tried not to make it obvious that he noticed, and make it even less obvious that it sent a shooting pain straight to his heart.

 

‘Hello, Richie. Please don’t call me that, thank you’

 

‘My, my, someone’s feeling fancy today! Using the correct syntax, are we, Eds?’

 

Despite his best efforts, Richie could not coax Eddie out of his angry shell, so he gave up and moved seats, so he was sat next to Stan and Bev, who were having an in-depth discussion about what fabric made the best Jacobean ruffs.

 

Unfortunately for Richie, and because Jacques obviously hates him, and wants him to be decapitated by a very irritable looking Eddie, the two were partnered once more to work on an extract from _The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus._ The extract was one of Richie’s favourite moments in the play, when Faustus and Mephistophilis meet for the first time. They move to one of the small practice rooms leading off from the main space, and being alone with Eddie makes Richie more nervous than was probably necessary.

 

‘I suppose we should decide who’s going to be who’ Eddie starts, throwing his copy of _Faustus_ on the small table. It lands awkwardly and slides off the table with a small thud. Eddie makes no effort to pick it up.

 

‘I charge thee to return and change thy shape; Thou art too ugly to attend on me’ Eddie continues, and once he’s finished reciting he shoots Richie a pointed look with his eyebrow raised.

 

Richie doesn’t know whether to be faux-upset at Eddie’s insinuation that he’s ugly, or impressed that he could quote the play verbatim.

 

‘… What are you trying to say, Eddie Spaghetti?’ Richie jokes, after a beat.

 

Eddie rolls his eyes hard enough that Richie is convinced he’ll burst a blood vessel.

 

 ‘Jesus Christ, just because I let you hug me doesn’t mean that we’re now bosom buddies, you know’

 

‘Yeah, I think it was less you _letting_ me hug you, and more you sending me these subliminal ‘I need a hug’ signals’’ Richie countered, crossing his arms defensively over his chest.

 

‘I was sending no such signals’ Eddie pouted petulantly, mirroring Richie as he crossed his own arms.

 

‘You were sending so such signals’

 

‘For God’s sake, Fine! Fine. I guess I needed it. I was just – I find it hard to talk about. That’s sort of my whole fuckin’ problem’ Eddie replied, voice no louder than a mumble. He looked smaller now, as he uncrossed his arms only to wrap them around himself. Richie watched Eddie hug himself as his heart beat painfully in his chest.

 

‘No sweat, Spaghetti. Now, which one of us is gonna be this butt ugly demon?’

 

* * *

 

 

Eddie, who had begrudgingly accepted the role of Mephistophilis, was in the middle of announcing, ‘ _O, Faustus, leave these frivolous demands, Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!_ ’ when the bell rang, indicating that the class was over.

 

They leave the small practice room together, and Richie bounds over to the shelf where his bag was waiting. He starts shoving his textbooks and notes into it haphazardly, and he’s half way out of the door when he feels a tentative hand on his bicep. He turns around, and is met with Eddie’s anxious looking face, teeth gnawing on a bruised looking bottom lip.

 

‘Do you – I mean, if you don’t have any classes right now, which I mean, you probably do, but if you don’t, I was wondering –‘

 

‘Spit out, my dear’ Richie laughs, eliciting yet another eye roll from Eddie.

 

‘I was gonna ask if you wanted to get a coffee or something? We need to work on that damn _Edward II_ extract for the recital and I thought we could discuss practice logistics and whose house we’re going to work in when and that kinda stuff’

 

 ‘whose house we’re going to work in?’ Richie parrots, slightly bewildered.

 

‘Duh, the practice rooms get locked after 6pm and if I’m gonna have to perform this damn thing I wanna do it right so we have to make sure we are _perfect_ ’

 

After a brief period of static error messages, Richie’s brain reboots.

 

‘No sweat, Spaghetti. I’m definitely down for a coffee’

 

They start walking together, a somewhat comfortable silence echoing between them. Richie defaults to the café he always goes to with Stan, but he stumbles slightly as Eddie tugs on his hand.

 

 ‘where are you going?’

 

 ‘the union café?’ Richie gestures towards the sad looking building with a thumb

 

 ‘No way, the coffee there is disgusting, I know a quiet place a few minutes away from here’ Eddie replies with a grimace, not dropping Richie’s hand as he leads him to a hipstery looking coffee shop that consists of two shipping containers with glass walls balanced on top of each other.

 

Richie looks vaguely horrified at the prospect of drinking coffee in a see-through box suspended in the air, but Eddie just laughs at him and tugs him up the stairs

 

They sit in two squishy, well-loved arm chairs and nurse their coffees. They ordered exactly the same thing – decaf Americano with a small amount of milk on the side.

 

‘Why don’t you drink caffeine, Eds?’

 

 ‘Stop calling me that! I just, don’t. My mum told me it’d poison me or something – that it’d give me heart cancer. I know it doesn’t, but I get placebo heart pains when I drink it so I stick to decaf. What about you?’ Eddie gestures to Richie’s own decaf coffee.

 

Richie picks up the steaming mug and takes a long, loud slurp.

 

 ‘I have attention issues, ya see, and caffeine makes my bones feel like they’re going to vibrate out of my skin so for my own sanity, and the sanity of everyone around me, I stay away from the electric bean juice and stick to the decaf’

 

Eddie laughs. It’s high-pitched and sort of embarrassing, but Richie thinks it’s the nicest sound he’s ever heard. He wants it as his ringtone. It’s his new favourite song.

 

‘Well, that makes total sense.’

 

They shoot the shit for a while, vague impersonal discussions about the London weather and Richie’s accent and what Maine is like at this time of year. Eventually, they find themselves talking about the recital.

 

‘Do you think we have to wear costumes?’ Richie wonders aloud, swirling the dregs of his coffee around in the chipped ceramic mug. It was probably chipped on purpose.

 

‘I suppose so. We’ll have to talk to Beverly Marsh. She makes all the costumes.’

 

‘She the redhead?’ Richie asks.

 

‘mm-hmm.’ Eddie hums.

 

Richie notices that as the conversation continues, and they talk about the timing of the piece, whether they should ask to extend the scene, and the staging, Eddie becomes more and more frustrated.

 

‘Eddie, what’s wrong?’ Richie asks eventually, after Eddie had slammed his mug down on the table particularly aggressively.

 

Eddie looks up at him, shock written plainly across his face.

 

‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

 

‘Eddie, seriously. I know I haven’t known you for very long, but – you’re obviously upset. Your hands are shaking, and it ain’t that damn coffee’

 

‘I just _hate_ this. I hate that I can’t do it. I hate that you look at me with those pitying eyes and you probably think I’m this defective scared little baby who can’t just say his damn lines without crying on stage’

 

‘Have you cried on stage before?’ Richie asks, cautiously.

 

‘Yes. Once.’ Eddie replies with a violent nod of his head.

 

‘When?’

 

‘My secondary school did a production of the lion king. I was seventeen. I was Zazu, and I was in the middle of singing I just Can’t Wait to be King and I froze. All those people staring at me. My words got stuck in my throat, like they were choking me. I cried like a little bitch right there on the stage.’

 

‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you freeze like that, how’dya get into the RADA programme?’

 

Eddie throws back his head and pushes out a laugh that sounds more like howl than a laugh.

 

‘Oh, that was easy. I just had to read a few monologues in front of two people. Easy shit. I’m very good at what I do’

 

‘Ah, I see. King of Modesty over here, everyone!’ Richie announces to the rest of the room, pointing at Eddie.

 

‘Ssssh!!’ Eddie growls, with no real malice, before shrugging his shoulders, a small smile playing on his lips.

 

‘What?! It’s true! I’m good at this shit, like _really_ good. If I never had to perform in front of more than five people I’d be the best damn student in this school. But it’s never that easy, is it?’

 

Richie hums, and before he realises what he’s doing, he’s placing a hand on Eddie’s knee.  He sort of expects Eddie to flinch, to push him away, but he doesn’t. Eddie places his own hand on top of Richie’s and squeezes gently.

 

Eddie steers the conversation back to the recital, and where they’re going to rehearse.

 

 ‘We sort of can’t do it at mine’

 

‘I mean,  that’s okay. We can do it at mine first, if you like, and yours next time?’ Richie offers.

 

 ‘I mean ever. We can’t ever rehearse at mine. I live with my mum and she’s – I mean, she wouldn’t …’

 

Richie realises that Eddie is withdrawing again, curling in on himself like a woodlouse.

 

‘No worries, we can work at mine’ he says easily, desperate to keep Eddie out in the open, a sunflower threatening to curl in on itself as the dark approaches.

 

Eddie looks relieved almost immediately, and Richie releases a breath he didn’t realise he was holding.

 

When they leave the coffee shop, Richie hugs Eddie again. Eddie looks like the kind of person that never gets enough hugs, that’s never touched enough. Richie doesn’t mind being the one to give him what he needs. Eddie doesn’t really hug back, at first, but eventually he circles Richie’s shoulders with his arms and sort of clings.

 

‘I’ll see you at yours tomorrow, then. Just to practice, though. It’s just practicing’ Eddie says, in a voice that Richie doesn’t recognise – it’s robotic, like he’s trying to tell himself something that Richie doesn’t understand.

 

 ‘Yeah, I know it’s just practicing?’ Richie’s sentence ends on an inflection, like he’s questioning Eddie without openly asking.

 

Eddie gets an odd look on his face, like was disappointed with what Richie said, but before he could ask why, he’s gone.

 

Richie watches him walk away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !! another chapter. I hope you liked it!! <3
> 
> lemme know what you liked and what you hated. I'm aware that maybe this story might be a bit boring for some. 
> 
> I’m also taking some liberties with what I’m considering ‘17th century’ tragedy. I’m aware that Edward II and Faustus are ‘technically’ 16th C according to some people – but this is often contested and the dates range from c. 1590-1610. I want to include these plays, as they’re important to the story. So hopefully you’ll forgive me for including them.
> 
> Oh, just in case you’re curious  
> Richie, Bev and Georgie = American  
> Stan, Eddie = British  
> [other characters TBA]
> 
> catch me on tumblr! @thefutureisnotsobright


	3. What's Past is Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doubt thou the stars are fire;  
> Doubt that the sun doth move;  
> Doubt truth to be a liar;  
> But never doubt I love.

Richie woke up the next morning with hazy eyes heavy with sleep, before glancing at the alarm clock, and jumping out of bed upon the realisation that Eddie was due to arrive in less than an hour. Richie decides to clean his flat at lightning speed, throwing all the receipts, empty takeout cartons and various other bits of detritus in a big black binbag. He hauls it down the three flights of stairs to the bin store, where he bumps into Jack and Francis making out leaning up against one of the large recycling dumpsters.

 

‘Very hygienic place to be swapping spit, boys’ he calls out, laughing when they spring apart with red cheeks and guilty eyes.

 

‘We were just – it’s bin day, right? So… we were just bringing –‘ Francis starts, running a hand through his hair. A nervous tick, Richie thinks.

 

‘Yeah, yeah, whatever, you reprobates’

 

He slings his own rubbish into the bin, and narrowly misses twatting Jack around the head with the bag.

 

‘Whoops! Sorry J-dog’

 

‘Watch it, four eyes!’

 

‘… Jack, you have glasses too, y’know’

 

‘… Shut up’ Jack laughs, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

 

‘You can get back to your tonsil tennis now, boys! Don’t let me interrupt you’

 

‘Fuck off, Richie’ they both called in unison, and Richie flees from the bin store before they throw a rotten banana peel at his head. He’d learnt from experience.

 

Richie had met Jack and Francis on the first day he’d moved into the halls of residence. They were both music students, and Richie often found himself lying on the floor of their flat, smoking lazily while they tinkered on their guitars. They routinely ignored his pleas for one of them to play Wonderwall. Or, Jack did. Francis had played it for him once when Jack was in the bathroom. Richie loved Francis. As he walks back up the three flights of stairs to his apartment, Richie thinks about when he’d first moved in, when the residence officer had handed him two tiny keys – one to unlock his flat and one to open the laundry room in the basement. With the two tiny keys lying in his palm, attached to each other by a thin circle of metal, he couldn’t help but think about how insignificant independence feels in his hands.

 

He tries to make the flat look welcoming, even going to the extent of fluffing up the cushions, and laying them out in a sort of haphazard but welcoming sort of way. Richie isn’t sure why he’s so desperate to impress Eddie with his cleaning and tidying skills. He tries to bury the small part of him that is so desperate to impress his friend deep, deep down in his body – praying that it might never see the light of day. He isn’t quite sure why he’s so desperate to pretend that he’s openly _not_ trying to impress Eddie, either.

 

By the time Richie’s intercom buzzes to announce the arrival of his guest, Richie has managed to give the entire place a once over with the hoover. He buzzes Eddie in, and hovers by the door like an anxious blue-bottle, waiting for the inevitable rap on the door.

 

Eddie knocks on the door with three, short sharp bangs of his fist. Richie thinks  no other sound could describe Eddie so perfectly.

 

Richie opens the door with a chirpy, ‘Heya, Eds!’

 

‘Don’t call me that!’ Eddie snaps, and Richie’s heart sinks.

 

It rises from the floor, though, when Eddie follows up with a tentative, ‘Hey, Richie, it’s good to see you’

 

Richie holds the door open, arm extended with a flourish, to invite Eddie into his living room. Eddie steps past him, the neutral, almost passive, expression on his face broken with the suggestion of a smile that lasts for just a moment before it’s chased away by cautious apathy. Richie doesn’t’ mind.

 

‘So, I thought we should just run through the whole extract first, see what parts we think we need to work on, and maybe we could even start to block some of the staging, y’know, see how we wanna stage the thing.’ Eddie starts, setting his rucksack gingerly on the sofa. He sits next to it, opening it and pulling out his well-worn, well-annotated copy of _Edward II._

 

‘Ah, you wanna jump straight into it then, Eds? No small talk?’ Richie tries, aiming for jovial, light-heartedness but only half succeeding.

 

‘Well, that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it?’ Eddie replies, but it’s not a statement. It’s a question, a question that Eddie seems to be asking both Richie and himself. Richie doesn’t quite know how to respond, so he just responds with a shrug and a nod. Eddie looks disappointed. Richie immediately wants to change his answer. Eddie curls in on himself then, both physically and verbally. They run through the scene, and Eddie’s voice isn’t quite as searching, as intimate. His Gaveston isn’t quite as devoted, despite Richie’s attempts to draw that side out of him. Richie wonders whether this is because the last time they saw each other, yesterday in the coffee shop, Eddie wrenched his chest open, bared his soul for Richie, before leaving with blood dripping from the wound.

 

They mark the extract for several hours, and, much to Richie’s delight, the Gaveston that had been present at the workshop, the first time they’d worked together, finally surfaced. Eddie seemed to settle, the tension drained from his shoulders like liquid, as his ‘My Lord’s’ became more sincere, and his eyes became softer. Richie felt like punching the air.

 

Eventually, though, when they both started fumbling lines and corpsing enough that it threw off the entire tone of the extract, they decided to break for a while. Eddie suggested that they watch a performance of _Edward II_ on youtube, to assess how different theatre companies had approached the same extract, to see if they could learn anything from how the pros did it. Richie didn’t really care, and easily agreed. The prospect of sitting next to Eddie on the sofa with the laptop balanced on the coffee table was oddly thrilling – a proximity that they dared not try until now.

 

They sat on the sofa, thighs a whispers distance apart, for thirty minutes before Eddie excused himself to the bathroom. Richie points him in the right direction, and watches Eddie walk away. He sits back on the sofa, something not unlike whiplash upsetting his breath. He tries to busy himself on his phone, scrolling aimlessly through twitter, not laughing at memes that would usually amuse him, before it’s been nearly ten minutes and Eddie hasn’t come out yet. He wonders if Eddie’s locked in the bathroom, escalating his concern to ‘Eddie’s been sick and needs my help’, before he decides to go and check.

 

He finds the bathroom empty.

 

What isn’t empty, however, is his bedroom.

 

Eddie’s standing in his bedroom, in front of a chest of drawers, holding one of Richie’s framed photographs in his hands. Richie immediately knows which one it is.

 

‘Well I’ve never seen a king of beasts with quite so little … hair’ Richie announces in his best British accent, causing Eddie to jump, and drop the photograph.

 

‘Jesus, Rich!’

 

‘Sorry!’ Richie laughs, walking over and and stooping to pick up the photograph from where it lay face down on the floor.

 

‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop. I just –‘ Eddie starts, but Richie interrupts him.

 

‘Ah, chill, Eddie Spaghetti. It’s no problem. I was sixteen here’ Richie says, gesturing to the photograph of him dressed in a multi-coloured feathered costume. 

 

‘I was an awful Zazu, really. I just couldn’t nail the accent.’

 

Eddie snorts at that, before he covers his mouth with his hand in embarrassment.

 

‘Well, your British certainly hasn’t gotten any better’

 

‘You brute!’ Richie squeals, going for British but landing somewhere between Texan and Indian, which makes Eddie laugh even more.

 

‘I played Zazu once’ Eddie says, once the laughter has stopped bubbling from his mouth.

 

‘Yeah?’

 

‘Yeah, I told you about it yesterday’

 

Realisation dawns over Richie like a raincloud, threatening to burst.

 

‘Oh shit, the time you cried on stage?’

 

‘Yup. I was eighteen. It wasn’t even that long ago – I had to read for Zazu for my A-Level drama exam. First big speaking role. I got a fucking F, nearly failed the damn thing. Luckily, my coursework brought my grade enough to get me into RADA, with a stonker of a reference from my teacher. I really fucked it, Richie. It’s sort of been the defining moment of my career, in a way. It sort of ended it. I haven’t been the same on stage since’ Eddie recounts, in fragments of full sentences.

 

Richie can only listen as Eddie claws open his chest once more, bleeding all over Richie’s floor.

 

‘Shit, Eds’ Richie whispers, unsure of how to respond. He glances at the picture of himself, instead. Holds it in his hands, and wishes that Zazu hadn’t been the part that started his career. Anything but that damn bird that made Eddie look so upset.

 

Richie hated that Zazu had started his career, but ended Eddie’s. Traumatised him. Made him stutter and corpse and want to hide from himself. That damn bird.

 

‘Eh’ Eddie shrugs, ‘It’s okay. I’m used to it, I guess. I have to push a lot harder than you to make all this come out though’

 

Richie doesn’t have to ask what he means.

 

‘I think I should go. We’re both knackered, and I don’t think I can keep focused on this anymore, so I might as well go if we’re done here?’ Eddie asks. It’s not a statement, but a question. Richie knows that Eddie’s hinting, an unspoken plead. _Ask me to stay._

 

Richie doesn’t. He’s not sure why.

 

‘Okay, guv’na. I’ll see you on Monday?’

 

Eddie nods.

 

Richie wants to smack himself.

 

Eddie hovers at the door, hand on the handle. He doesn’t say anything, just looks at Richie with big, sad eyes.

 

Richie hugs him.

 

‘What are you doing?’ Eddie whispers into his shoulder, the sound muffled by the scarf wound tightly around Eddie’s neck.

 

‘I’m holding you’ Richie replies, open and honest.

 

‘I feel like I’m fucking dreaming’

 

‘Huh?’ Richie asks, bemused. He pulls back slightly, not enough to let Eddie go completely but just enough that he can look into Eddie’s eyes, searching for the meaning behind those six words.

 

‘Never mind, see you on Monday Rich’ Eddie whispers, pulling away completely and turning on his heel.

 

Richie watches him walk away. Eddie doesn’t turn around.

 

* * *

 

 

Stan comes over the next day. Richie is very aware of the fact that he doesn’t throw the empty chip wrappers in the bin, or the fact that he doesn’t run the vacuum around before Stan arrives. He tries not to think too much about what that might mean.

 

They play Mario Kart together on Richie’s beaten up old WII, and Stan howls with laughter when Richie steers with his entire body, throwing himself left and right to mirror Yoshi’s.

 

‘Eddie was here yesterday’ Richie offers, trying to school his voice into something casual, disaffected. He only somewhat succeeds.

 

‘Oh yeah?’ comes Stan’s curious response, his interest piqued.

 

‘Yeah, he came over to work on that damn extract for the winter recital. You know, the Ed the second one’

 

‘Ah yes! You’re such a damn teacher’s pet, Rich’

 

‘What can I say, Staniel. It ain’t my fault Jacques knows raw, unabashed talent when it’s in front of him’ Richie replies, dramatically fanning himself with his hands.

 

Stan rolls his eyes.

 

‘Is that what we’re calling it, now?’

 

‘Whatever, ye of little faith. Anyway, what do you know about dear ol’ Eds, anyway?’

 

Stan hums, thoughtfully.

 

‘Honestly? Not a whole lot. I know he came from a state school, that he’s here on a scholarship. I know that he doesn’t have many friends, and I know that he can be pretty damn sharp when he’s in one of his moods’

 

‘That doesn’t tell me anything! You’re a useless font of knowledge, you know’

 

‘Please do forgive me for not knowing his blood type and his mother’s maiden name, Richard’ Stan huffs, playfully. ‘Oh, I guess I did interview with him on the same day? Does that count?’

 

‘Oh, do tell!’

 

‘Well, he was with some gargantuan, angry looking woman with a red face. Made Eddie look about three inches tall. I remember seeing Eddie sprint out of the audition room after his turn, though. I thought it was almost a certain that I wouldn’t see him come September, he looked devastated. But it must have gone okay, because he’s here, right?’

 

‘Yeah, I suppose so. He told me some pretty personal stuff yesterday, stuff that sort of explains why he’s so … testy, sometimes’

 

‘Are you going to tell me?’

 

‘Nope. Can’t. Sworn to secrecy. You couldn’t even torture it out of me’ Richie replies, crossing over his heart solemnly. ‘I crossed my heart and hoped to die’

 

‘Hmmmm, okay. I’ll take your word for it, then. Oh, your pining reminds me, are you going to the winter ball after the recital?’

 

‘I am not pining!’ Richie insists, watching helplessly as Yoshi careens into a gaping cavern.

 

‘But yes, I suppose I am going. Are you asking anyone?’

 

‘Already have’ Stan replies, smugly.

 

‘SPILL’

 

‘D’ya know Patty Blum? One of the dance students?’

 

‘The one that always wears her hair in those braids?’

 

‘What a weird thing to observe about someone. Yes, her!’ Stan replies, watching as Mario glides over the finish line, securing him first place. Richie is in sixth.

 

‘What a good catch, Stan the feckin’ man! She’s a looker, alright’

 

‘Don’t be weird, Richie’

 

‘I’m not! Can’t a buddy congratulate his buddy when he secures a bona fide hotty?’

 

‘No’ Stan replies, simply. ‘No, he cannot’

 

* * *

 

 

The week flies by in a blur of practicing with Eddie, translation workshops and mediocre essay feedback. Richie can hardly catch his breath before he’s standing in his seventeenth-century tragedy workshop on the day of the winter recital. Jacques is in full regalia, gesticulating wildly at the front of the class about something that Richie isn’t listening to. He can only hope that his legs look that good in skin tight lycra when he’s pushing seventy. Eventually, when Jacques has finished waxing poetic about the history of the winter recital and how it’s very important that all students attend, regardless of whether they’re performing or not, Richie and Eddie are dismissed into one of the smaller practice rooms, to work on their extract. They’re supposed to block out their performance, and to work out the last minute staging details, so everything runs as smoothly as possible.

 

The problem, that Richie soon learns, is that Eddie is in a foul mood. Richie can practically see steam rising from his skin.

 

‘Heya, Eds, you okay?’

 

‘Can we just cut the shit, Richie. I just want to make sure this damn performance goes as close to perfect as humanly fucking possible’ Eddie snaps, rubbing his hands over his face.

 

Richie nods in response, and they start running through their extract.

 

Eddie keeps dropping his lines, and stumbling over his speech, and Richie can do nothing but watch as Eddie internally beats himself up every time he messes up a line.

 

‘We could just leg it, you know, make up some excuse’ Richie offers the third time Eddie gets the same line wrong.

 

‘No, we can’t’ Eddie replies, defeated.

 

‘We so could. We could just run away. I don’t think Jacques would hurt us _that_ badly’

 

‘We can’t Richie. He already said he’d kick me out. He might even kick _you_ out, I’m not letting you do that for me’

 

‘I’d take my chances. For you, I mean, I’d do it’ Richie replies, surprised at his own openness, his own honesty.

 

‘You barely fucking know me, Richie’ Eddie replies with a disbelieving snort, as if he simply could not comprehend someone else willing to put themselves on the line just for him.

 

‘I mean, I know enough, and I want to know more’ Richie shrugs, challenging Eddie with insistent eyes.

 

Eddie is just staring at him, opening and closing his mouth dumbly, when Jacques pokes his head around the door, and dismisses them.

 

‘The recital starts in two hours, go and get something to eat, boys. You need your strength!’

 

Eddie practically sprints out of the room before Richie can even think about asking him to go and get food.

 

_To: Stan:_

_Hey dude, fancy grabbing some food?_

_From: Stan:_

_Sure thang._

_To: Stan:_

_Omg you said thang_

_From: Stan:_

_Shut up_

* * *

 

 

Richie meets Stan at the union café. Stan is already sat at one of the small tables when he arrives, two plates of food on the table. Richie thanks him, and begins shovelling fries ( _or, chips, as Stan insists)_ into his mouth at a pace that would break the land-speed record.

 

‘Are you gonna come see me and Eds perform tonight?’ Richie asks.

 

‘Of course! I’m looking forward to it’

 

‘He’s really caught up about this, you know’ Richie says around a mouthful of fries. ‘It’s like he’s permanently on the precipice of breaking down into tears and freaking the fuck out’

 

‘Yeah, I did think he looked suspiciously green when I saw him running into the bathroom just now’

 

‘Shit, you don’t think he actually went all vomitorium, do you?’ Richie asks, alarmed.

 

‘You do know that the vomitorium isn’t what you think it is, right? But that reminds me, have you done the Julius Caesar prep for next week?’

 

Richie shrugs, shaking his head to indicate that he hasn’t.

 

‘Dude, obviously not. I’ve been trying not to scalp myself stressing about how Eddie will manage to do this recital without imploding’

 

Stan sends him a weird look, eyebrows raised.

 

‘Are you not worried about yourself?’

 

Richie’s caught off-guard by the question.

 

‘I guess not? I haven’t had time to worry about myself. I’ve been too worried about him, I guess.’

 

‘You’re so whipped’ Stan laughs, making a whip cracking sound.

 

Richie throws a tomato at him.

 

* * *

 

 

Richie doesn’t see Eddie until right before the recital, when Eddie shows up backstage, face pallid and hands shaking. Richie can’t bare it.

 

‘It’s just you and me up there, kid. Just you and me’

 

Eddie doesn’t say anything, but he does shuffle almost imperceptibly closer to Richie, shaking hands brushing Richie’s still ones. Richie resists the urge to reach out and grab them.

 

‘Don’t look at them. Don’t even picture them in their underwear or anything, they’re – they’re not even there. It’s just you and me. Your Edward and my Gaveston. Just us, okay?’

 

‘Okay. Just us, My Lord’ Eddie replies, voice quivering, but barely so.

 

Richie smiles at him, and Eddie shoots him a weak smile back, before Richie takes a slow, deep breath inwards, and exhales it as he walks out onto stage.

 

The next thing Richie knows, the lights are dimming and a cacophony of thunderous applause threatens to deafen him. Eddie chases him off stage, still shaking, but Richie knows it’s from the adrenaline still coursing through his veins. Richie can hear his wheezy breaths, as he grabs Eddie’s hand and tugs him the rest of the way off stage. He tugs so hard he worries that Eddie’s arm will pop straight out of its socket, but it holds firm.

 

‘We fucking did it!’ He crows, punching the air with his free hand. The other one is still gripping Eddie’s wrist.

 

‘We did it! I didn’t vomit!’ Eddie responds, voice high and bright like a bell.

 

‘You fuckin’ did it, Eds! You were magnificent, honestly, you put me to shame’

 

‘Sorry, My Lord’

 

Now they’re off stage, and they’re no longer in the headspace of their characters, Eddie calling him ‘My Lord’ turns Richie’s legs to liquid. He stumbles, and prays to a  God he doesn’t believe in that Eddie doesn’t see. If he does see, Eddie doesn’t say anything.

 

Once he’s able to convince his mouth to co-operate with his brain, Richie manages to splutter out a question.

 

‘Are you going to the winter ball this evening?’

 

‘Are you?’ Eddie shoots back.

 

‘Yup! I’m wearing matching masks with Stan. They have antlers and everything! I think he paid Beverly Marsh to make them?’

 

‘Then yeah. I’ll see you there’

 

* * *

 

 

Richie doesn’t bother to go home and change before the winter ball. The theme is ‘Midwinter’s Night’s Dream’, and he thinks that the Edward II costume, all floaty linen and tight black suede, will be more than appropriate. He meets Stan outside the hall where the ball is being held, and Stan gives him his mask. It’s black, with flecks of gold. Richie loves it. When they walk into the hall, Stan abandons him almost immediately to go and find Patty, leaving Richie to occupy himself. He does so by becoming very well acquainted with the punch bowl.

 

Before he knows it, he’s drunk. Perhaps it’s the fact that the novelty of being able to openly drink alcohol at eighteen hasn’t worn off yet, or the fact that he’s uncharacteristically nervous about seeing Eddie. Richie decides not to think about it too much.

 

Soon enough, Richie is pulled onto the dance floor by a girl he doesn’t recognise. She’s got short blonde hair cropped close to her face, and She tells him her name is Sandy, or Brandy. It’s definitely something that ends in -andy. She tells him she’s a dance major, but Richie doesn’t really listen. They dance together for a few songs, before Richie catches a pair of eyes glaring at him from the darkness in the corner of the room.

 

Eddie.

 

After no more than a  few seconds of eye contact, the eyes emerge from the darkness as Eddie stomps purposefully towards him. Richie holds his breath.

 

‘Come on, Richie’ Eddie says, grabbing Richie by the lapels of his suede jacket, and hauls him out of the room.

 

Richie follows, one third confused, one third lost, and one third a little turned on.

 

Eddie pulls him into an empty classroom, not bothering to turn on the lights before he shuts the door, leaving them surrounded by a comfortable kind of darkness. The kind of darkness that makes people brave.

 

‘I just wanted to thank you for earlier’ Eddie’s voice filters from the darkness. Richie can’t see him, even though he knows that Eddie must be close. He can feel small puffs of breath on his face as Eddie talks.

 

‘You were kind to me, really kind. I just wanted to say thanks’ Eddie continue.

 

‘Oh, ‘Tis nae bother, laddy!’ Richie responds, in something close to a Scottish accent.

 

Eddie snorts, and suddenly they’re hugging.

 

‘I want you, I want you so fucking bad’ a voice whispers, and Richie is horrified upon the realisation that it was his own mouth that said it. He holds his breath, waiting for Eddie to shove him away, to slap him, to do anything other than what Eddie actually does.

 

‘Just fucking kiss me, then’ Eddie replies, without taking a beat.

 

Richie doesn’t need to be told twice.

 

He slams their mouths together, with an unnecessary amount of force, eliciting a shocked ‘Umph!’ from Eddie. Richie closes his eyes, and concentrates on the small, tickly feeling of Eddie’s tongue swiping across his bottom lip, bravely. Richie bracketed Eddie’s face with his hands, placing the tips of his fingers on the soft spot underneath Eddie’s ears. He could feel Eddie’s jaw working under his hands, sending a thrill up his spine.

 

Neither of them hear the door swing open.

 

‘Get it, funky reindeer!’

 

The door behind them slammed. Eddie jerked away, pulling his mouth away from Richie’s with a slick ‘pop’.

 

‘Who was that?’

 

‘I have no idea, and to be honest, I don’t fucking care’ Richie replied, trying to chase Eddie’s mouth with his own.

 

Eddie moved his head away, so Richie’s lips landed on his cheek.

 

‘Rich, I have to go’

 

Richie groaned.

 

‘Seriously?’

 

‘Yeah I told my mum I’d be home by ten. I only came so I – so I could do that’ Eddie replied.

 

Richie couldn’t see his face, but if he was a betting man, he’d bet his entire soul on the fact that Eddie was blushing.

 

‘I’ll text you, okay?’ Eddie says, and with that, he’s gone. Richie is left alone in the darkness, with the realisation that he doesn’t have Eddie’s number.

 

* * *

 

They start hooking up, after that. It’s like an unspoken agreement. Eddie never gives Richie his number, and Richie – for reasons he doesn’t quite understand – never asks for it. Three Monday’s after the recital, and the party, and their first kiss, Eddie corners Richie in the bathroom.

 

‘Hey, Rich’ he breaths into Richie’s neck.

 

Richie turns pliant under Eddie’s insistent fingers, despite every fibre in his body demanding that he protest, that he demand that Eddie tell him why they only kiss like this when Eddie looks particularly pissed off.

 

Maybe Richie is less apathetic about this arrangement than he initially thought.

 

The problem is, and Richie thinks it’s a pretty big problem, is that he really likes Eddie, and he thinks that having this small part of him is better than having nothing at all.

 

Eddie puts his hands on Richie’s chest, pushing firmly as they kiss, and Richie wonders whether Eddie is trying to push his way through all the layers of sinewy flesh and muscle and bone, to grasp Richie’s heart in his hands. Richie is horrified to realise that he’d let him.

 

With that, Richie pushes Eddie away.

 

Eddie makes a small, hurt noise. Richie cups his face with his hands.

 

‘Eddie, are you okay?’

 

‘Yeah, I’m fine, just kiss me’

 

Richie moves his face so Eddie’s searching lips miss.

 

‘No, Eddie, are you okay?’

 

‘Jesus Christ, Richie, I said I’m fine! Isn’t this what you want?’

 

Richie shakes his head.

 

‘No, this isn’t quite what I want’

 

Eddie huffs, stepping away from Richie entirely.

 

‘Well what _is it_ that you want, then?’

 

‘You’

 

‘Why?’

 

‘I’m not so sure. I don’t think it’s rational, Eddie Spaghetti. I just have this little voice in my head that shouts about how much it likes you and how upset it is that you only kiss me when you’re angry’

 

Eddie groans, and stares up at the ceiling for a beat.

 

Richie waits.

 

‘That’s not it at all’ he says eventually, like it was dragged out of him by wild dogs.

 

‘What is it then, Eds? You can tell me. I’m a big boy’

 

‘You’re too happy’

 

Richie blinks.

 

‘Well, I don’t think that one has ever been used as an excuse not to date me. I’ll give you five points for originality there’

 

‘No, shut up for a second. I mean… I’m not happy. I’m permanently fucking frustrated, and I try so hard to get up on that stage and not freak the fuck out and you do it so effortlessly? Honestly I’m not sure if I want to _be_ you, or if I want to _fuck_ you.’ Eddie blurts, his voice wobbling and his lower lip quivering ever so slightly.

 

Richie pulls him into his arms, lifting him slightly off the floor so that he might bury his head in Eddie’s neck.

 

‘Oh Eds, if only you could see what I see’

 

Eddie sniffs.

 

‘I’m not fucking crying’

 

‘Of course you’re not’

 

‘Honestly, I’m not fucking crying, it’s dusty in here. The fucking – the dust, it’s making my eyes water’

 

‘Tell me where it hurts, baby’ Richie says instead, setting Eddie back down on his feet, but not letting go. ‘Tell me where it hurts, and I swear I’ll make it stop, you just gotta tell me where it hurts’

 

Eddie doesn’t tell him, but that’s okay.

 

They stand there, hugging in the bathroom until the last bell rings and they leave the building together, not for the first time. It is the first time, however, that they leave the building with Eddie nestled under Richie’s arm, smiling at something Richie whispered in his ear.

 

* * *

 

 

The transition from Richie and Eddie to _RichieandEddie_ is remarkably easy. Eddie can still be testy and he still spits venom at Richie occasionally, but Richie learns to give him space when this happens, and every time, without fail, Eddie will attach himself to Richie’s side and kiss his face, an unspoken apology. The spoken apology comes when they’re in private, lying together on Richie’s bed, or huddled together on the sofa.

 

They’ve been dating for three months, past Christmas break, and into the beginnings of spring. Richie thinks this is the happiest he’s ever been.

 

They arrange to go and see a live broadcast of Hamlet at the cinema – a virtual link from the Stratford-Upon-Avon theatre to the Vue cinema in the centre of London. Eddie is ecstatic, as Hamlet is his favourite play, and Richie loves to see Eddie this excited.

 

They buy popcorn at the concessions stand, and take their seats. Eddie can barely contain himself, and Richie has to place a hand on his knee, anchor him to the ground, to stop him from vibrating out of his skin with excitement. Richie soon works out that the armrest moves, so he shoves it up, and by the time they’re at the bit where Polonius reads the letter from Hamlet to Ophelia, Eddie is sprawled across Richie’s lap.

 

When Gertrude says, ‘Came this from Hamlet to her?’ Eddie sits bolt upright, as if electrocuted. Richie raises a questioning eyebrow at him, but Eddie says nothing, just shifts in his seat so his mouth is next to Richie’s ear.

 

When Polonius starts reading the letter, Eddie whispers the words into Richie’s ear.

_Doubt thou the stars are fire;_  
Doubt that the sun doth move;  
Doubt truth to be a liar;  
But never doubt I love.

Richie laughed at him. He tried to cover his mouth so as to not annoy the rest of the people in the cinema, but Eddie heard, and glared at him.

 

Richie couldn't stop laughing, eventually whispering 'you clichéd twat' at Eddie, before kissing him square on the mouth. 

 

Even though he laughed, and even though Eddie really was a cliched twat, Richie could feel his heart hammering at his ribcage, beating out the rhythm to the ‘ _EddieEddieEddie_ ’ song deafening out the rest of the dialogue.

 

* * *

 

They’re lying in Richie’s bed when things change.

 

Eddie’s head is resting on Richie’s chest, who has his arm draped protectively around Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie is idly drawing patterns on Richie’s stomach where his shirt has rucked up , invisible sonnets that melt into his skin like oil. Richie’s eyes are closed, the ‘EddieEddieEddie’ song in his head drowning out the silence of the room.

 

Richie wishes he could be cryogenically frozen at this exact moment - so he could wake up in a thousand years, the dawn of a new age, with the knowledge that him and Eddie have been suspended in this moment for several lifetimes.

 

‘I want you to fuck me’

 

Richie chokes on his own spit.

 

‘Pardon?’

 

‘Fuck me, make love to me, have sex with me – whatever. I want you to do it. Fuck me, Rich’

 

‘Are you sure?’ Richie asks, hesitant. They’ve never had _the_ conversation. He doesn’t know if Eddie’s done this before, whether he’s had sex with another man before.

 

‘Positive’ Eddie replies, before he’s twisting in Richie’s arms, and pressing an open-mouthed kiss to Richie’s mouth, that turns filthy almost immediately.

 

 'And you've done this before, right?' Richie asks, unsure about whether he wants to go ahead if Eddie hasn't.

 

Eddie nods the affirmative, and Richie released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

 

Richie hooks an arm under Eddie, and prays to a God he doesn’t believe in that he’ll manage to flip them over without causing internal damage to either one of them. He manages it. He hovers over Eddie’s smaller body, feeling somewhat predatory. Eddie hikes his legs up Richie’s sides, locking his ankles together, pulling Richie closer, closer, impossibly closer. Eddie’s arms smooth down Richie’s sides, and it doesn’t take long before they’re rutting against each other restlessly, the slow, hesitant grind of their hips becomes insistent and needy, and the gentle touches become firm grips. Eddie’s fingers press into the swell of flesh above Richie’s ass, and he pulls his mouth away from Richie’s, leaving behind a webbing of spit. Richie doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything more attractive than Eddie beneath him, eyes blown and their mingled spit shining on his skin.

 

They kiss again, a little less insistent, until Richie grows impatient, and starts kissing over Eddie’s face, his cheeks, the soft flesh below his ear, and the taut muscle of his neck. Eddie chases his lips, initially, before he realises Richie’s intentions and he lies back, closing his eyes. Richie doesn’t return to Eddie’s slightly parted lips, and instead starts pulling at the soft cotton of Eddie’s t-shirt, hoping he’d get the message. Eddie does, and sits up, and grabs the back of his shirt, pulling it over his head. Richie does the same, before he pushes Eddie back down and starts kissing down his throat, before stopping at his chest. He starts toying with Eddie’s nipple with his tongue, flicking it and sucking on it. He shifts down the bed, but glides his hand back up Eddie’s body, fingers landing around Eddie’s throat. He doesn’t squeeze, but applies a feather-light pressure to the sides of Eddie’s neck.

 

Richie wants to learn Eddie like lyrics. He wants to recite the curves and dips of his body to an audience, write odes dedicated to the dimples in Eddie’s lower back, and write sonnets about the breathy whines Eddie makes when Richie touches his throat.  

 

‘Come here, Rich’ Eddie moans, voice wrecked.

 

Richie doesn’t move.

 

‘ _Richie’_ Eddie practically keens, pulling on Richie’s hair, startling a moan out of Richie’s mouth.

 

_Well, that’s new._

Eddie gives another experimental tug, a bit harder this time, and Richie moans louder, but he doesn’t move. He kisses down Eddie’s chest, past his nipples, past the taut line of his stomach until he hits Eddie’s jeans.

 

‘Eds, little help?’

 

Eddie lifts his hips off the bed, allowing Richie to tug his jeans down his legs. He struggles with the stiff, uncooperative denim until he’s managed to free Eddie’s legs entirely. The first thing he notices is that Eddie isn’t wearing any underwear, which makes him snort. The second thing he notices is that Eddie, by all accounts, has the most perfect dick he’s ever seen. If you looked up dick in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of Eddie’s. Richie bends down, and lets a glob of spit fall out of his mouth onto the flushed red head, causing Eddie’s hips to jerk up. Richie spits on it again, before he bends down and, flattening his tongue, licks a stripe up the shaft, before taking Eddie’s dick into his mouth.

 

‘ _Jesus, fucking hell’_ Eddie cursed, fingers buried in Richie’s hair. His hips stuttered, like he was trying with all his might not to fuck up into Richie’s mouth, like he was trying not to shove his dick all the way back into Richie’s throat. Richie started slowly bobbing his head, squeezing one hand around the base of Eddie’s dick, and using the other hand to cup and gently squeeze Eddie’s balls.

 

‘Shit – shit, fucking _stop,_ Richie, stop, stop, stop’

 

Richie pulled off with an obscene pop.

 

‘Are you okay, babe?’

 

‘Yeah – fuck, I was gonna come, don’t wanna come like this’

 

Richie moved so he was hovering over Eddie again.

 

‘Can I kiss you or is that weird?’

 

Eddie didn’t answer, just curled a hand around the base of Richie’s neck and pulled him down. Richie wondered whether Eddie could taste his own salty skin on his tongue, whether Eddie was swirling his tongue in Richie’s mouth like that because he was trying to chase his own taste.

 

‘ _fuck me, My Lord’_ Eddie breathed into Richie’s mouth, and it took every ounce of Richie’s self-control not to implode, untouched.

 

‘Ah shit, Eds, you’re killing me’

 

Scrabbling for the condoms he knew were in the shelf above his bed, Richie grabbed one and tore the package open with his teeth. He rolled it onto himself, before looking up at Eddie, questioning.

 

‘How d’ya wanna do this, babe?’

 

‘Lemme ride you’ Eddie replied, already shifting upwards, shoving at Richie’s chest with his hand.

 

‘Shit, yeah, yeah okay’

 

Eddie moves so he’s straddling Richie’s legs, and so he’s sat just above Richie’s cock. He leans forward so his ass is somewhat elevated, so that Richie has access. Richie coats his fingers in lube, before he's pressing his index finger against the ring of hot, tight muscle. Eddie gasps into his mouth, and Richie uses that as confirmation, so he pushes against the resistant muscle, until his finger slips inside. He doesn’t add another until Eddie is pushing back against it, fucking himself on it. Richie’s fingers are long, and by the time he’s got three fingers buried in Eddie’s ass, dragging them in and out slow enough to have Eddie’s thighs trembling and arms shaking as he tries to keep himself from falling onto Richie’s chest, Richie knows it’s time.

 

Richie removes his fingers, leaving Eddie slick and loose. Eddie sits up, and shifts backwards, so he’s now positioned over Richie’s dick. Richie shifts so he’s half sitting up, just enough so that he can catch Eddie’s mouth in a kiss, as Eddie slowly sinks down, inch by inch, until he’s bottomed out on Richie’s thighs. Eddie sits, unmoving, eyes scrunched shut, and Richie panics internally until he starts rocking. Imperceptible shifts, at first, but soon he’s grinding in Richie’s lap, lifting himself up and dropping down. Richie meets his thrusts, moving his hands to underneath Eddie’s thighs, to help lift him.

 

‘You – _hnnng_ – you feel so fucking good, Rich’

 

‘You too’ Richie moans in response, sparks of static electricity shooting up his spine.

 

Eddie’s fucking himself onto Richie’s dick properly now, and he’s dropped his hands from where they were supporting himself on Richie’s shoulders. He’s leaning back, now, back arched at an angle that Richie thinks cannot be comfortable, but the litany of curse words falling out of Eddie’s mouth suggest otherwise.

 

Richie was finding it progressively harder and harder to breathe, Eddie’s relentless bouncing chasing the oxygen from his lungs. Eddie was making these repetitive ‘uh, uh, uh’ noises, and Richie couldn’t take it anymore. He grabbed Eddie’s dick, leaking and engorged, and began clumsily trying to match Eddie’s pace. He wasn’t doing a particularly good job, but Eddie didn’t seem to care.

 

‘ _Fuck, fuck,_ close – gonna, _fuck_ ’ Eddie panted, chest heaving with his erratic breaths. His neck was thrown backwards, skin taut and Richie wanted to bite into it.

 

Eddie shifted in his lap, changing his angle slightly, and with several more twists of Richie’s wrist, Eddie came in spurts on Richie’s stomach. Almost immediately after Eddie had regained the ability to move, he pulled himself off Richie’s cock.

 

‘What – where are you going?’ Richie moaned.

 

Eddie didn’t go far, just shifted on the bed so he was lying on his side, flush against Richie. Realising what Eddie wanted, Richie pushed Eddie’s top leg so it was lying at a right angle, and he pushed back into Eddie, almost crying at the sensation of whitehotheat surrounding him. Richie knew he was just an inch away from enlightenment, and he pounded relentlessly into Eddie, chasing a high that was inching closer and closer every time he dragged his dick in and out of Eddie.

 

‘ _Come for me, My Lord, come for me_ ’ Eddie whispers, and that’s enough to send Richie over the edge, his vision blurred white as he came, hips stuttering erratically.

 

When Richie regained the ability to see, it was silent for a couple of seconds, before Richie pulled himself out of Eddie. Eddie hissed, quietly, before he shifted so he was facing Richie. They kissed lazily for a few minutes, before Eddie sprang up.

 

‘Can I use your shower?’

 

‘Not a cuddler, Eds?’

 

‘I am, after I’ve showered though. I feel kinda gross and I smell a bit’

 

‘I think you smell fucking delicious’ Richie replies, but he points towards the bathroom door.

 

Eddie disappears into the bathroom, and Richie tries not to let his chest puff up too much at the awkward waddle Eddie tried to disguise as a normal walk.

 

‘Hey Rich, can you get my toothbrush out of my bag? I think it’s in the inside pocket’ Eddie yells from the bathroom

 

‘’Kay’

 

Richie roots through the bag, searching for the toothbrush, when something catches his eye.

 

It’s a letter.

 

It’s a letter with gilded edges in a fancy looking envelope, and Richie never was one with good impulse control.

 

* * *

 

 

_Dear Mr Kaspbrak,_

_We are delighted to offer you a place on the ‘Dramatic Arts: Direction’ course, starting March 2019._

_Please find enclosed a recent prospectus. You can expect to hear from us in due course regarding living arrangements and the payment information for your scholarship._

_Once again, congratulations, Mr Kaspbrak. The course is highly competitive, and it is a testament to your talent, dedication and hard work that we are able to offer you a place._

_Best Wishes,_

_Jerome Gardner_

_Chair of Performing Arts, Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts_

 

* * *

 

Richie stares at the letter in the middle of the table, the letter with the gilded edges and the calligraphic writing and the ‘ _congratulations, Mr Kaspbrak_ ’ and tried not to vomit. Eddie sat opposite him, head in his hands, fingers clawing desperately at his damp hair as if he was trying to burrow his fingers deep into his skull, penetrate his brain. As if he could find the specific part of his brain that could turn off his ears forever, so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Richie’s wet, heaving breaths anymore.

 

‘Rich’ Eddie moaned, desperation clinging to his words like syrup.

 

‘Don’t you fucking dare, Eddie’

 

‘Richie, please’

 

‘Don’t you _fucking dare,_ Kaspbrak’

 

Eddie’s crying now. Richie knows he’s crying because he can see Eddie’s back shaking, and his fingers are jammed into his eye sockets, trying to wipe the moisture away as quickly as it appears. Richie doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, doesn’t think about anything other than the fact that Eddie is leaving him, leaving to move to Edinburgh, leaving him to go to learn how to direct theatre and Richie can’t stop him.

 

‘You know this is what I want’ Eddie said in an almost reverent whisper.

 

‘Is it, Eddie? Is this really what you want? Or is this something you’re doing to run away from, oh I don’t know, your crippling stage fright and the fact that you can’t stomach to commit yourself to anything other than a meaningless _fuck?’_ Richie spat, tripping over his words as he tried to get them out of his mouth as quickly as humanly possible.

 

Eddie groaned like a wounded animal half way through Richie’s rant, slamming his head down on the table hard enough to make Richie jump. His hand shot out as if possessed, reaching feebly over to Eddie’s shoulder, but Richie snatched it back before it had a chance to grasp Eddie’s shoulder like it so desperately wanted to.

 

‘How can you say that to me, Rich? I fucking _love_ you, I do love nothing in the world so well as you’

 

A disbelieving scoff tumbled out of Richie’s mouth before he could stop it.

 

‘Two can play at that game, asshole. Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, knowing thy heart –‘ Richie interrupted his speech, to grab Eddie’s chin from where he was still lying forlornly, and gently but firmly guiding Eddie’s face to look directly into his eyes.

 

‘Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain, have put on black and loving mourners be, looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. How’s that? Fuckin’ pretentious enough for you? Enough to make you stay, perhaps?’

 

Eddie doesn’t say anything, just stares at Richie with these ridiculous, pleading eyes that make him want to scream into the night.

 

‘Yeah, no.’ Richie spits, shaking his head violently. ‘I didn’t think it was.’

 

‘You know I have no future as an actor. You know that, I know that, Jacques knows that, everyone knows that’ Eddie tries, but his attempts at reasoning fall on deaf ears.

 

‘You just need to believe in yourself more, Eddie’ Richie tries, desperation replacing anger, ‘you just need to try harder’

 

‘I can’t. I have tried and tried and fucking _tried._ Nothing works. This directing school gives me a chance, Rich. It gives me a chance to still be somebody, to keep doing the things I love’

 

‘If you go’, Richie starts, voice clear and strong much to his surprise, ‘if you go, you won’t hear from me again’

 

‘ _Richie’_ Eddie tore his face away from Richie’s grasp.

 

‘This is my dream, this is everything and more I’ve ever wanted out of life _. Don’t do this to me,_ please, Rich, you’re going to kill me’ he continued, voice shaking slightly.

 

‘Stop being so fucking dramatic’ Richie replied, with a patronizing snort.

 

‘I feel like I’ve tricked you into falling in love with me’ Eddie says, forlornly. He’s rubbing his forehead absently, an angry red welt rising to the surface.

 

‘It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it?’

 

Richie feels something unpleasant bubbling at the bottom of his stomach, something pleading with him, begging him to stop, to stop being so cruel to Eddie, to stop fighting with him and savour these last few moments. Maybe he's being unfair, Edinburgh isn't that far away. Maybe they could do long distance. Maybe they could if Eddie hadn't lied to him. He squashes the guilt right down until it was no more than a miserable ache in his belly.

 

Richie expects Eddie to start sobbing again, or to start yelling, or to do anything apart from what Eddie actually did. Richie watches Eddie stand up, wipe his eyes one last time on the sleeve of his sweater, and walk around the table so that he was standing directly in front of Richie. He bent down, and pressed his lips to Richie’s forehead in a hesitant, but firm kiss.

 

‘I love you, Richard’ Eddie whispered into his hair, just loud enough that Richie could barely hear it above his own thundering heart.

 

‘Just go, just fucking go before I die right here at this table’

 

Richie closed his eyes, and by the time he’d opened them again, Eddie and the letter had gone. All that remained was the ‘EddieEddieEddie’ song that echoed unrelentingly in his brain.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! i wrote smut. 
> 
> I've never written it before, so pls don't be mean if you think it's crap. I'll probably get better at it with practice. I've based it off my own experiences (TMI lol) and stuff I've read/seen. Hopefully it's okay!!
> 
> This is the last chapter of the pre-Hamlet production era. From the next chapter, we'll follow R and E as they navigate the next stage in their relationship - when Eddie is directing the production that Richie is staring in.
> 
> This might seem sort of rushed, and that their relationship didn't develop much, but I didn't want this to be a story about their RADA days. That isn't really the point of this story. These first three chapters are sort of a whistle-stop tour of how E and R meet, and why they're ... not that keen ... about working together when they're older. So I hope I've covered enough to provide enough background for where I want to take this, going forward. 
> 
> Lemme know what you loved and what you hated!! <3
> 
> catch me on tumblr; @thefutureisnotsobright
> 
> thank you so much for reading x
> 
> [ _PSA: I wrote the smut whilst eating a very large plate of mashed potato. I'm not sure if that aids with the reading experience, just thought you all should know_ ]


	4. The wheel is come full circle

_‘Are you kidding me – YOU’RE my Hamlet? She’s sent me YOU? I swear to God – Right. Well. Get inside – no, not THAT door, the door where – just follow me’._

Richie waits for a beat, watching Eddie march away with his scarf trailing behind him, gauzy fabric reaching out to Richie with invisible arms. Eventually, Richie’s feet co-operate with the signals screaming in his brain to _go! go! go!,_ and he follows Eddie, who had disappeared through a small side-door marked ‘private’. Richie takes a deep breath, before he pushes the door open and steps inside, breaching the dark underbelly of the RSC.

Richie follows Eddie through a series of corridors, winding this way and that, past small dressing rooms, large open spaces with chairs strewn haphazardly around. People pass them, nodding at Eddie and staring at Richie with blank, expressionless looks. Richie keeps his gaze trained to the shocking white of Eddie’s sneakers, a stark contrast against the deep, velvety black of the rest of his outfit. Eddie is talking on the phone, the tinny voice of the other person filtering out into the air, but not loud enough that Richie can hear what they’re saying. He tries not to listen to what Eddie is saying, feeling invasive, but he can’t persuade his ears to disengage.

“No, I had no idea you’d cast him … I suppose he _was_ always very good when we were at RADA together … I told you that! You _knew_ I went to RADA with him … Well you know now … Yes, he’s _that_ Richie … I have no idea … I have to go, thank you again for this simply marvellous surprise”

Eddie eventually pushes his way through a set of large double doors, and Richie follows him through into a large classroom. One of the walls is mirrored, and there are nine other people staring over at him. He instantly recognises one of them.

Watching Eddie march over to the desk, and start typing furiously, Richie makes a beeline for where Stan is standing.

“Stanley the Manley!”

“Oh Jesus Christ, it’s you”

Richie smacks Stan’s arm lightly.

“That’s hardly an appropriate greeting for your best friend now, is it”

“Richie, I haven’t seen you since we graduated” 

“Semantics, semantics” Richie dismisses, with a wave of his hand.

It was true. He hasn’t seen Stan since he graduated fourteen years ago. Even then, Richie had grown more and more distant from everyone after Eddie had left. He put his head down, poured his heart and soul into everything he did, graduated, and never looked back. His RADA years were simultaneously the best and worst years of his life thus far, and it exhausted Richie to think about them. It had, however, meant that he’d lost touch with Stan. Stan had tried, send him texts and emails and even rang him once a month for two years, but that, like all things, eventually stopped. Seeing Stan now, stood in front of him, with fine lines around his eyes and flecks of grey mottling his ashy blonde hair, tugged painfully at Richie’s heart.

“I’m sorry, you know”

“I know you are, Rich. I get it, I was just collateral damage” Stan dead-panned, the monotone voice contrasted happily with the smile in his eyes.

Before Richie could reply, he was interrupted by the clapping of hands.

“So now that the lead has so kindly deigned us all with his presence, we can begin. You should have got the email with the cast list, so perhaps some of you are familiar with each other. My name is Edward Kaspbrak and I’m directing this production, as you all well know. You can call me Eddie, though. We’ll start by reading through act one scenes four and five, the first interaction between Hamlet and the ghost of Old King Hamlet, so those of you who aren’t needed can excuse yourselves to one of the other rehearsal rooms to read through act one scene one to three together. Hamlet, Horatio and Marcellus, over here” Eddie instructed, pointing to a door which presumably lead to another rehearsal space, before beckoning to Richie, Stan and an attractive, blonde-haired man steps forward, presumably this production’s Marcellus.

Everyone else filters out of the room in near total silence, leaving Richie, Stan and the man playing Marcellus staring dumbly at each other, unsure of what to do.

“Hang on, who’s playing the ghost?” Richie called out, causing Eddie’s head to snap up from where it was buried in an old beaten up copy of _Hamlet_ , his hands leafing impatiently through the yellowing pages. 

“Pardon?” 

“The Ghost, who is playing him?”

Eddie blinks.

“It hasn’t been cast yet”

“How the hell are we supposed to block this, then? Am I supposed to talk to the air? Act as if the air is talking to me? C’mon, Eddie, that’s a bit ridiculous” Richie asks, gesticulating wildly.

“I’m sure you’ve had plenty of practice talking to yourself”

As soon as he says it, Eddie’s face shifts, the perfectly schooled apathy replaced by something that looks almost pained, something that almost resembles regret, before its chased away, and the apathy returns.

“Can we at least call one of the others in and have them read it for now?” Richie tries, trying to ensure that his voice doesn’t betray his frustration and start to waver.

“I’ll read it, I suppose, if you’re going to make such a fuss about it”

With that, Eddie throws the book onto a nearby chair, where it lands closed with a slapping sound. Richie sends a sideways glance at Stan, who is staring at both of them with wide, amused eyes. 

Marcellus is standing on the other side of the room, looking equal parts confused and terrified.

Watching Eddie unwind his scarf and set it neatly on the nearest table, Richie is thrown backwards in time, as the Eddie standing before him, dressed in black dress pants and a black shirt, morphs into the Eddie he had seen for the first time in rehearsal room 3. His Lear. 

They start reading through Act I Scene IV, which goes fairly well. Eddie only shouts at Richie once, when he gets a line wrong.

“Ministers of grace and Angels –“

“Wrong!”

 “Pardon?”

“It’s ‘Angels and Ministers of Grace –“ 

“Oh for fucks sake” Richie mutters under his breath.

Surprisingly, he’s not frustrated at Eddie. In all fairness, he did get the line wrong. What surprises him is the embarrassment that claws at his stomach. He’s embarrassed. He’s standing in front of the love of his life – the boy that twisted him up and turned his whole life upside down nearly fifteen years ago – and he’s getting lines wrong, and he’s embarrassed.

“Try it again” comes Eddie’s reply, and Richie looks up at him tentatively, expecting to be met with glares and scorn, but Eddie’s face is blank. He’s just looking at Richie, prompting him, willing him to continue. No malice, but no soothing smile, either. Richie tries to remember what Eddie looked like when he smiled, when he was tucked under Richie’s armpit when they were watching movies in Richie’s shitty old flat. 

Richie tried again, and got it right.

They finish act one scene four, and move straight onto act one scene five. The ghost speaks to Hamlet in this scene, which means Eddie will be speaking to Richie, pleading with him to ‘ _remember me!’._

Richie never forgot him.

“Where wilt thou lead me? Speak; I’ll go no further” Richie starts.

“Mark me”

“I will”

“My hour is almost come, when I to sulphurous and tormenting flames, must render up myself”

As they progress through the scene, Richie is stunned to realise that Eddie is awful. His delivery is wooden, his voice is monotone, emotionless, as if he doesn’t care, as if he’d rather be anywhere else, totally apathetic to Richie’s need for a good performance to respond to, to bounce off of.

“Adieu, Adieu Hamlet, Remember – –“

“Have you forgotten how to do it, Eds?” Richie interrupts, and it spills out of his mouth with more venom than he’d intended.

“We didn’t all have the luxury of finishing our acting degrees, _Richard”_ Eddie snaps, the apathy on his face gone entirely.

He looks hurt, the same expression he’d been wearing when he’d told Richie he loved him for the very last time at the dining table, before he’d walked out of the door, and out of Richie’s life, nearly fifteen years ago. 

Richie doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. They finish reading through the scene. Eddie’s performance doesn’t improve, if anything, it gets worse. Every ‘Swear it!’ delivered with indifference. Tiny verbal bullets that sting every time they hit Richie’s ears. Richie can’t help but recall Eddie’s Lear, powerful and commanding, a harsh juxtaposition to this damp squib of an old King Hamlet.

Almost immediately after Richie had uttered the last line of the scene, Eddie marches over to the door that the other cast members had left through, and disappears. He returns seconds later, accompanied by the rest of the cast.

“We’ll start looking over act one scene two, now. We’ll go back to act one when the whole cast is here, which will be sometime next week. I want to think about staging for scene two, and how we’ll have Claudius and Gertrude situated in relation to Hamlet, I think I’d like you, Ben, over here, and Bill if you can – –“

“Don’t you think we should all introduce ourselves?” Richie interrupts, for a second time.

Eddie just stares at him, eyebrow raised. A challenge. _Continue, if you dare._

“I just think we should get to know each other, you know, so we all know where we’ve come from, who we are, what our backgrounds are. I’ll start, so, uh, sup, my dudes, the name’s Richie, and I’ve just come off tour with – –“

“I hardly think that’s relevant” Eddie scoffs, “If you want to spend the precious time we have together making friends, by all means, be my guest, but you’ll be doing it outside of my rehearsal space”

“I just thought it might help improve the chemistry between our characters”

“Do you really think a friendly atmosphere is _appropriate_ for the play in question, Richard?”

“… I mean, I just –“

Richie meets Eddie’s eyes. 

“I guess not”

* * *

 

The rest of the rehearsal goes okay. Richie tries not to let it sting too much when Eddie places his hands on Ben’s stomach, above his diaphragm, to help him project his voice, and when he laughs at Mike twirling around the stage In the first mock-up of his Ophelia costume. Richie tries his best to draw Eddie out of his shell, to draw Eddie back to him, repeating jokes that he _knows_ Eddie would have laughed at – _did_ laugh at in the past– but he doesn’t. Their interactions remain cold, clinical and professional.

At the end of the day, the main cast are knackered, but they decide to go to the pub to decompress and get to know each other a bit better. The only members of the cast that make their excuses are the actors playing Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Shrugging on his coat, Ben shouts out an invitation to Eddie to join them. 

“Hey, Eddie! We’re all going to the pub. D’ya fancy it?”

“Uh…”, Eddie replies, eyes flicking over each of the people stood in front of him, before his gaze lands on Richie. Their eyes meet, and do not waver.

“No thanks” Eddie delivers straight to Richie, words that bore straight into the pit of Richie’s stomach. Eddie looks away from Richie, and his tone shifts to something light hearted, the voice Richie had grown to love all those years ago. “I’ve got a lot of preparation to do for tomorrow, we’ve still got a lot to do before we can move onto scene three. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

With that, Eddie leaves the door with a small wave.

“Ah, yes, now we can get to know each other ‘ _outside of the rehearsal space’._ I mean, what the hell was that all about?” Mike asks, holding onto Stan’s shoulder as he tries to escape the folds of fabric keeping him hostage.

“I know” Stan replies, simply, a wicked glint in his eye. 

“Don’t!” Richie shouts before he can stop himself.

Everyone looks at him expectantly. 

“Uh… I just need to get my coat” Richie mumbles, before slinking into the back cupboard. He smacks his forehead against the wall with a thump, closes his eyes, and breathes.

 

* * *

 

They decide to go to the pub with the garden with the outdoor heaters, at Richie’s insistence, so that he might indulge his nicotine habit. He’s been gasping for a cigarette all day, but he hadn’t dared ask Eddie if he could slip out for a few minutes.

They squish onto a small picnic table together, and Bill ends up sat comfortably on Ben’s lap, an attempt at navigating the lack of space. Ben’s hands loop comfortably around Bill’s waist, and Richie sends a quirked eyebrow his way, receiving a confused but genuine smile in response. 

Richie offers to buy the first round, ‘lead buys first’, and pulls Bill off of Ben’s lap to help him carry the drinks back to the table.

“Is something going on there, Billiam?”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific, Rich” Bill replies, leaning on the bar and tapping his fingers rhythmically on the polished wood. 

“Between you and our dear King. Bit of method acting, if you will?” Richie replies, waggling his eyebrows.

“I’m still lost” 

“Oh my sweet summer child. Are you, our beloved Queen Gertrude, boning the usurper in chief, King Claudius?”

“You mean – am I fucking Ben?” Bill laughs.

“Yes!”

 “I’m pretty sure Beverly would stab me with her knitting needles if I even tried it, mate”

“Ah, you got a lady friend then?” 

“Nope. Ben does. Bev is the costume designer for this production. She’s been with Ben for years and this is the first production they’ve worked on together since they got together years ago. It’s super sweet and also super gross because I’ve walked in on them … doing things … what feels like _so_ many times and we’ve only been rehearsing for a day!”

Richie threw his head back and laughed, a proper belly laugh that shook his entire body and soul. Bill laughed too, a high-pitched croaky laugh that just made Richie laugh even more. Wiping some stray tears from his eyes, Richie was sure he saw a familiar figure disappear into the toilet, a figure wearing all black and a gauzy scarf.

“I thought Eddie wasn’t coming with us?”

“Huh? He’s not?” Bill replied, confused.

“I swear I just saw him disappear into the toilet” Richie said, still staring at the toilet door, lest he miss the person he was sure was Eddie reappear in the main bar area.

“I need a piss anyway so I’ll go check!”

Bill disappeared into the bathroom, and by the time he’d returned Richie was in the middle of ordering. 

“Hey mate, can I get four pints of Somersby and two Punk IPA’s please? – – oh, any luck?”

“Nah, It wasn’t Eddie” 

Richie hummed, not entirely convinced.

 

* * *

 

 As they waited for their drinks, Bill started pressuring Richie about the weirdness he’d witnessed between him and Eddie. 

“I’ve gotta ask, dude, what was all that about with Eddie? I saw that weird look you shared”

Richie tried to remain as flippant, and disaffected as it was possible to be, given the circumstances.

“Ah, I dunno, man. You know how he is” 

“I’ve known him a day, Rich, and judging by the tension between you two that you could cut with a knife, I’m guessing you can’t say the same”

They arrived back at the table, much to Richie’s delight, and he passed out the drinks, hoping that the conversation between him and Bill would get buried by whatever everyone else was talking about.

He was not so lucky.

 “Hey Stan, what did you mean when you said that you know why Eddie was being all weird about us getting to know each other?”

“I meant what I said, I know the reason. But I can’t tell you if Richie doesn’t want me to. It’s not my story to tell, I just wanted you all to know that I know”

Bill, who was sitting back on Ben’s lap, just rolled his eyes. 

“Come on, Rich, I command thee to tell your mother why the air is most foul between you and master Kaspbrak” 

“Do you want the long story or the short story?”

Bill rubbed his chin in faux thought.

“Short, then long if it’s juicy enough”

“We met at school, we fell in love, he broke my heart”

Richie was met with a round of sympathetic hisses and whistles, and a comforting hand on his thigh from Mike.

“Sorry, Kid. We all thought it was something to do with you being late, or something.”

“I mean, that probably didn’t help” Richie tried to laugh, but the words came out strangled.

“What was Eddie like at school?” Ben asked, swatting at Bill who kept trying to put leaves in his beer. 

“Um. I dunno – he was, uh, he was brilliant, I guess”

“Wait, hang on” Adrian, who was playing Laertes, interrupted. “Didn’t Eddie go to school in Scotland? And you met Stan at RADA? How… I’m lost. How does that work?”

“Eddie went to RADA for a year before he transferred” Stan supplied, after Richie sent him a panicked look. “Eddie left in the Spring term of first year. He met Richie and I there, and then he left for Edinburgh”

“Why’d he transfer?” 

“Ask him yourself, because I still don’t have a fucking clue” Richie replied, bitterly, before draining his pint in one go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we are, my loves. Another chapter of this fic. I don’t know if anyone really likes it, but I enjoy writing it so here we are. Writing this proved to me that ‘rehearsal’ is a really hard word to spell. 
> 
> Lemme know what you liked and what you hated! 
> 
> i'm on tumblr @ queen-sock.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks for reading x


	5. When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

The road Richie lives on is small and unassuming, a forgettable cul-de-sac. He’d moved there with Sandy, as soon as he got the email confirming that he’d ‘ _read Hamlet_ ’. It hadn’t lasted. They’d broken up less than a year after they’d bought the house. She’d accused him of cheating on her, and he hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t cheated on her, of course, but it had given him a very convenient way of avoiding having a conversation he’d been putting off for several months prior. _I’m still in love with the boy (man?) that broke my heart over a decade ago_ doesn’t roll off the tongue particularly well, nor is it all that believable. So they’d split. Richie had taken on sole tenancy of the small townhouse they rented, and Sandy had left him and moved back in with her parents in Bath, leaving him in Stratford-Upon-Avon on his own.

The road Richie lives on is small and unassuming, a perfectly pleasant and quiet area of a perfectly pleasant and quiet town. That’s why, when Richie was stumbling down the street pissed out of his mind at 3am after trying (and failing) to drink Ben under the table, and singing (or howling) along to _Prowlin’_ from _Grease 2_ , a large number of people peered around their curtains and glared at him. He paid them no mind. He fumbled with his keys, dropping them six times, before his uncooperative fingers finally managed to shove the key into the lock and turn it. The stuffy, gaping black maw of his hallway stared back at him. Scoffing, and swearing at everything and anything, Richie managed to turn on all the lights in his living room and kitchen, and flop onto the sofa, without breaking anything – limbs and extremities included.

Richie smacked his lips. His mouth tasted like someone had been using his tongue as an ash tray for the last four hours, before telling him to gargle with white spirit. In short, it tasted like ass. Not that Richie remembered what ass tasted like. It had been far too long. His laptop sat, screen open and inviting, sat on the coffee table. Richie tugged it towards him, before lifting it over to his lap by the screen. He almost missed Sandy shrieking ‘ _if you lift it like that, the screen will come off in your hands and you’ll be fucked’._ Almost.

The machine booted up, whirs and purrs breaking the silence. Richie’s fingers worked on autopilot, his alcohol-hazed brain taking several seconds to catch up.

 

_Google: Edsss kaspbrK_

_Did you mean: Eds Kaspbrak?_

_Did you mean: Edward Kaspbrak?_

 

Yes. Yes he did mean Edward Kaspbrak. Richie supposed he wasn’t allowed to call Eddie Eds anymore.

_Edward Kaspbrak, 486,972 results in 0.0003 seconds_

 

Richie’s eyes lazily scanned the first few lines of results. The first page was Eddie’s staff page on the RSC website. The second was Eddie’s twitter. The third was an article from the Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts student newspaper. Richie clicked on it. 

 _“The ECDA is super stoked to announce that the opening night of the student production of the Phantom of the Opera, directed by our very own Eddie K_ , …. Blah blah blah blah _Eddie_ blah blah blah _successful_ blah blah blah” Richie mumbled out loud to himself, heart tightening in his chest.

Backspacing out of the page, Richie clicked on the next article. This one was from four years ago, and was a review of a production of _King Lear_ that Eddie had directed. Richie skimmed the article, before clicking on the embedded video interview at the bottom of the page. Eddie’s face fills the screen. He looks younger than the Eddie Richie had seen earlier that day. His face is smoother, and his mouth isn’t set in a harsh line. His eyes are soft. He looks happy. Richie feels sick.

“ _So_ ,” the interviewer begins, “ _Tell me about this production. Your Lear is particularly arrogant and unlikable, and unlike other productions that I’ve seen, I actually don’t feel like your Lear had any redeeming features at all. He’s just … consistently unlikable. That’s a pretty bold move for someone’s debut RSC directorial job, right?_ ” 

“ _Heh. I suppose_ ,” Eddie responds. “ _I remember reading King Lear when I was at RADA, when I was convinced that I’d be the one reciting the lines, rather than instructing people how to read the lines. My Lear is based on someone from my past._ ”

Richie feels sick.

“ _Oh_?” the interviewer probes, “ _I imagine you don’t think favourably of them, then? They’ve got to be a pretty painful relic, surely?_ ” 

Richie watches the on-screen-Eddie pause. Eddie’s eyes close before he responds.

“ _Quite the opposite, actually. Thank you so much for having me_ ”

Eddie leaves the frame, and Richie doesn’t listen to the interviewers cursory wrap up. His ears are ringing too loudly.

Richie backspaces, before blindly clicking on one last link. It takes him to the announcement of Eddie’s appointment as Artistic Director in the newsletter of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Richie can feel bile swelling in his throat. 

_The Royal Shakespeare Company is privileged and pleased to announce that  Edward Frank Kaspbrak has accepted the position of Artistic Director. Edward replaces Claire Van de Camp, who wishes her successor success. Edward joins us at a particularly exciting time, and his first production will the semi-centenary celebration of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a milestone marked with a production of Hamlet. We wish Edward a long and happy tenure with us, and we all look forward to working with him for years to come_

_A few words from Edward himself: “I’m delighted to join the RSC as Artistic Director to celebrate the momentous semi-centenary anniversary of the company. I am a man of few words, so I’ll leave you with the words of a wordsmith more skilled than I. And so, all yours. I am all yours, RSC, and I will serve you as long as you’ll have me.”_

The last words force the bile that had been bubbling in Richie’s throat to surge up his oesophagus. He scrambles to his feet, laptop falling gracelessly to the floor, and scrambles to his bedroom. He pulls an inconspicuous wooden box from under the bed, upending it so white envelopes come tumbling out. He spreads them all out on the carpet, before he grabs the one marked _15 th April 2019. _He opens the envelope. Two pieces of paper fall out, and he stuffs one back in without looking at it. He unfolds the other piece of paper.

 _15_ th April 2019  
  


_And so, all yours_  
  


_E_

The paper is fragile – It had been recklessly torn in half, before it has been painstakingly sellotaped back together. Richie couldn’t count how many times he’d stared at those four words.

 

* * *

 

 

When Richie had first started receiving the letters from Eddie, he had become almost incensed with anger. He’d vented to Stan, ugly, venomous ranting.

“I fucking hate him, Stan”

“No you don’t”

“Yes I fucking do. He abandons me to chase some stupid fucking selfish dream in Scotland, and then has the audacity – the fucking _NERVE –_ to write to me, to plead with me to forgive him?”

“That’s not what the letter says, Richie” 

“Wow. Fucking _Wow_. I thought you were supposed to be on my side? You know, your _best friends_ side?”

“You haven’t spoken to me for three months, Rich. I thought you forgot who I was”

“You’re being fucking ridiculous”

“Richard? Can I have a word, _s’il vous plaît?"_  

“Uh, sure, Jacques” 

Stan disappeared down the corridor, without so much as glancing over his shoulder. Jacques was stood behind Richie, holding the door to his office open with a gracious arm. Richie walked inside.

“What’s all this ruckus, Richard?”

“Nothing, Jacques. Just – just personal stuff, s’all.”

“Are you arguing with master Stanley about Edward?”

Richie felt himself stiffen. 

“How did you know?”

Jacques sits back on his chair, and folds his arms across his chest. His scarf flutters slightly in the breeze coming from the oscillating fan on his desk.

“Did you know that I told Edward to apply for the Edinburgh school?”

“No.”

“Did you know that I convinced him to go when he was reticent to leave you?” 

“No.” 

“Well, I did. Send some of that rage my way, if you must, but please do leave master Stanley out of it, he really isn’t at fault here”

“He’s been writing to me. I want to burn them.” Richie blurts out, without really meaning to.

“Spoken like a true dramatist” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I mean, you’re being melodramatic” 

“With all due respect, Jacques, you have no idea what you’re talking about” Richie snaps, in a tone that he’d probably regret later when he’s being disciplined for being mouthy to a member of staff.

“Perhaps. But perhaps you also have no idea what you’re talking about”

“Now you’re just not making sense”

“You’re nineteen, Richard. Things have a way of working out. Don’t burn the letters. Don’t send your memories of him up in flames. You’ll regret it.” 

“Can I go now?” 

“But of course”

 

* * *

 

As soon as he wakes up, Richie decides that he’s not going to rehearsal. This is partly because he’s hungover, but the hangover was nothing worse than he’d ever experienced after getting pissed after the opening night of every other production he’s ever done. It was mostly because he couldn’t bear to look at Eddie’s face. Or, perhaps more accurately, he couldn’t take nearly twelve hours of Eddie refusing to look at him with anything other than scorn. Not today.

He contemplates ringing to tell Eddie that he’s ill, but he doesn’t have Eddie’s number. He thumbs over the ‘Eds <3’ contact in his phone. Eddie’s old number, of course. Richie had a new number, too, in fact, he’d had several new numbers in the fifteen years since he’d last text Eddie. He had, however, copied the ‘Eds <3’ contact into every new phone he’d has since 2019. He assumed that Eddie had probably also had several new numbers since they’d last talked, but that didn’t deter him. 

Now, though, the sight of ‘Eds <3’ in his phone turns his stomach more than the whiskey in the tumbler on his nightstand does.

He decides not to ring anyone.

Instead, he clicks on the YouTube app, and types in ‘Edward II’.

He watches other people say the lines that he’d whispered to Eddie until he falls asleep, tear tracks marking his cheeks.

 

* * *

 

Richie wakes up several hours later. His phone is buzzing furiously on his bedside table like an angry hornet. When he picks it up, the screen reads ‘Unknown Number’. He throws the phone on the floor.

The buzzing stops, but almost immediately starts up again. 

He doesn’t answer.

The unknown number calls back again.

He doesn’t pick up.

His phone buzzes again, but this time its three short buzzes. 

 A Text. 

He grabs his phone off the stained carpet.

 

**From: Unknown Number:**

Where the fuck are you?

 

**From: Unknown Number:**

Today was a fucking disaster. Where are you?

 

**From: Unknown Number:**

How dare you make me worry about you.

 

Richie stares at the last text, shrouded in the dark comfort of his room, for what feels like hours. 


	6. Thus of every grief in heart he with thee doth bear a part

**From: Unknown Number:**

How dare you make me worry about you.

 

The phone, sat on his chest, burns a hole straight down to Richie’s rapidly thumping heart. The messages, from an ostensibly unknown number, were imprinted on the inside of Richie’s eyelids.

 

 **blink** – _how dare you make me worry about you_ – **blink** – _today was a fucking disaster –_ **blink** – _how dare you make me worry about you –_ **blink** – _make me worry about you –_ **blink** – _worry about you_

There was no question as to who sent those texts, and Richie could practically hear Eddie’s snotty tone ringing in his ears.

 

_“You didn’t text me when you got in, you said you’d text me and let me know you’re safe but you didn’t”_

_“Eds, baby, I’m sorry, I forgot”_

_“I was fucking worried, Richie”_

_“I know, I know, I’m sorry”_

_“It’s not fair of you to make me worry like that”_

_“Baby, you’re killing me, I’m sorry”_

_“How dare you make me worry about you”_

 

The familiar words burrowed deep into Richie’s gut.

 

 

**To: Unknown Number:**

Eds?

 

**From: Unknown Number:**

It’s Eddie. Where were you?

 

**To: Eds:**

trying not to vomit soz will b there on Mon

 

**From: Eds:**

Good. Feel better.

 

Richie doesn’t sleep at all that night.

 

* * *

 

The morning after the night before isn’t a rehearsal day. They have every Sunday off. Richie silently thanks a God he doesn’t believe in that he doesn’t have to face Eddie for another twenty-four hours. That gives him time to prepare, to try to school himself out of feeling too much. It doesn’t work, because as soon as _Working for the Weekend_ starts pumping out of his speakers Richie is nearly sick into his cereal as he remembers leaping around his shitty little flat with Eddie, drunks as skunks on shitty three pound cider and a whole lotta love.

 

He decides to walk it off. Like a stomach ache. Or a cramp.

 

Richie aimlessly wanders the streets, scarf wrapped tightly around his neck like a dormant boa constrictor, pressing just firmly enough so that the constant pressure against his throat reminds him that he’s alive. His hands are numb. He can’t feel his heart.

 

Eddie had always hated the cold. He’d bitched and moaned when Richie dragged him out into the January cold, hats jammed on heads and clasped hands buried in coat pockets. Richie always laughed as Eddie’s nose always turned bright red, where it poked out above his scarf. A red scarf with a large black check. Soft. Always smelt like soft cotton. Sandalwood. Eddie.

 

Richie adjusted the red scarf around his neck. It was practically threadbare.

 

Richie used to love the cold. The kiss of the frost, the sparkling of the black ice on the road. The puffs of air when Eddie spoke, spiralling into the air. Dancing on the wind that bit at their noses, ears, eyelashes. Eddie would always huddle into him, a penguin seeking shelter from arctic gales. Richie would welcome him in with open arms. He’d let Eddie gut him, and sleep inside his still-steaming carcass for warmth, if he’d asked.

 

Perhaps he still would.

 

Richie walks until he finds himself in the park that sits on the outskirts of the city. The plush grass is still wet from the morning’s rain. Trees litter the border, and people scurry across the surface like ants, ever busy. Richie stands and stares at them, cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t bother to try and catch it when it falls, cherry red fading to inky, dull black.

 

A bizarrely familiar figure crosses the park.

 

The figure walks across the field, holding tightly to a lead attached to a large black Labrador that bounds next to them. The stilted, harsh lines of the figure remind Richie of late nights and early mornings, of running through London with fire in his veins.

 

The closer the figure gets the more familiar he looks, until he’s stood right in front of Richie and of course it’s Eddie.

 

“Are you feeling better?”

 

“Uh – yeah. Yeah I feel alright now, Eds, don’t you worry about me”

 

“How many times am I going to have to tell you not to call me that before you listen to me?” Eddie huffs.

 

“Oh, infinity and one more time, Eds. Infinity and one”

 

“Were you really sick?”

 

“Something like that”

 

“Are you going to tell me the truth?”

 

“Probably not”

 

“He likes you”

 

 Richie glances up at Eddie, from where he’s crouched on the floor scratching the Labrador’s ears.

 

“Lots of people like me”

 

“He doesn’t normally like strangers”

 

“I guess he knows I’m not a stranger”

 

Richie watches Eddie close his eyes.

 

“Are you not?”

 

“No”

 

“I haven’t seen you for over a decade”

 

“Doesn’t mean I’m a stranger”

 

“I wish you were a stranger”

 

“I know”

 

“I wish you weren’t my Hamlet”

 

“Do you really?”

 

A pause.

 

“No, not really”

 

“It’s really great to see you again, Eds. I missed you”

 

“I – Yeah. You too, Rich”

 

Richie watches Eddie walk away.

 

* * *

 

“Jesus Christ, woman! I do have ribs you know. I am not, in fact, an invertebrate”

 

“Coulda fooled me”

 

“Wh–what?”

 

“I have no idea. Now shut up, I gotta adjust your inseam”

 

The costume department of the RSC was a jungle of dresses, powdered wigs, crowns, swords, handkerchiefs, and, of course, a large Papier Mache donkey’s head hanging from the ceiling attached to thin wires. Richie was standing on a rickety wooden chair, balanced precariously whilst Beverly Marsh, head of costume, poked and prodded at him.

 

“I need to take around 50 measurements, Rich, so you gotta stay still for me so we can work as quickly as possible. I’ve got to do the first fitting of Mike’s dress later, and god knows how long it’ll take me to pin the corset around his waist”

 

“Bev?”

 

“Hmm?” Bev responded absently, pins sticking out of her mouth. Brave.

 

“You were in my year at RADA, right?”

 

“Yup”

 

“Do you remember Eddie?”

 

“Sort of. I was only in one class with him, and I dropped out of that to take more costume classes but – _Motherfucker!_ Leather really is the most annoying fabric to work with, I swear to God, why did Eddie have to decide that this damn production needed you to be wearing skin-tight leather fucking trousers”

 

“We both know why he made that decision, Miss Marsh, have you _seen_ my ass”

 

Bev stepped backwards, bringing her hand up to stroke her chin pensively as she stared at Richie’s leather-clad ass.

 

“So?” Richie prompted, waggling his ass at Bev as much as the constricting leather would allow.

 

“Yeahhhh,” Bev drawled, still stroking her chin, “I still don’t get it”

 

_“You’re a fucking liar, my ass is great. Eds says that – I mean, Eddie used to say that – Aw, fuck”_

_Bev patted Richie’s arm comfortingly, helping him down off the chai_ r.

 

“D’ya wanna grab a smoke?”

 

“Aw, Dahlin’, I thought you’d never ask”

 

Bev helped Richie shuck off the tight leather trousers, and they walked out into the biting November cold. Leaning against the wall, they puffed on their cigarettes in silence, listening to the wind whip around the walls.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Richie instantly knows what Bev means. She wants him to tell her about why he didn’t show up yesterday.

 

“About what?”

 

He’s not going to tell her if she doesn’t work for it.

 

“You know exactly what, why didn’t you show yesterday?” Bev responds, sharp as a knife but her words don’t slice at Richie’s skin.

 

“Red, we both know that you know exactly what happened yesterday” Richie deadpans, flicking the cigarette butt into the gutter. Bev offers him another one, but he declines with one sharp shake of his head.

 

“Do you still love him?”

 

“Aw, hell. What kind of a question is that?”

 

“The questioning kind”

 

“I haven’t seen him for fourteen years”

 

“And?”

 

“He left me”

 

“And?”

 

“ _He left me!_ He walked away. He made it pretty fucking clear he didn’t want me anymore”

 

Bev hums, flicking her own cigarette into the gutter. It lands next to Richie’s.

 

“He wrote to you, though?”

 

“He did”

 

“Did you ever respond?”

 

Richie stares at Bev with tired, _don’t push it_ eyes. She doesn’t push it.

 

* * *

 

The door to the office was closed, and three minutes had passed since Richie was supposed to knock.

 

Three minutes, twenty-four seconds …

 

Eddie was waiting for him on the other side of the door. The days rehearsal had gone pretty well. He’d worked on the ‘ _get thee to a nunnery!’_ scene with Mike, which had gone unexpectedly well. Mike Hanlon, it seemed, was an absolute tour-de-force and his Ophelia was heartbreakingly sympathetic. A rather large part of Richie’s brain was ecstatic that he’d have someone so technically skilled to bounce off of, but a small, nasty part of Richie’s brain was worried that Ophelia would steal the show. He’d have to work on that.

 

Three minutes, fifty-five seconds …

 

Richie still hasn’t knocked on the door. He nearly has, twice. He has raised his clenched hand to the door twice, and twice he has lowered it again without making contact.

 

Four minutes, three seconds …

 

Perhaps he will never knock.

 

Four minutes, fifty-nine seconds …

 

Perhaps he is locked in a cyclical system of nearly-knocking-but-never-knocking.

 

Five minutes …

 

The door swung open.

 

“Richie?”

 

Where the closed door once was, Eddie was now standing, hands on his hips, confusion imprinted onto his brow.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“Uh – Yeah, yeah, sorry, I was just about to knock”

 

“You’ve been stood out here for five minutes”

 

“How did you know?”

 

“I could see your shadow under the door”

 

“Ah. Well, I _was_ just about to knock, though, honest”

 

The ghost of a smile chased its way across Eddie’s face, left to right, until it had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. His eyes remained brighter, though, stars reflected onto the irises. Eddie stood to the side, motioning for Richie to walk into the office. Richie slunk into the room, standing awkwardly in the corner as Eddie rounded the desk and sat down behind it.

 

“Whatcha wanna see me about, then?”

 

“I just wanted to talk to you about your no show on Saturday. You don’t have to tell me the reason you didn’t turn up, I understand that we are all complex life forms and some of us are more complex than others, but –”

 

A disbelieving snort forced its way out of Richie’s nose before he could stop it.

 

“Problem?” Eddie challenged, crossing his arms across his chest defensively.

 

“Nope. No problem, not at all”

 

“Richard”

 

“ _Edward”_

 

“Can we – can we not play these stupid games? I thought we’d be more mature than this, that we’d be able to get past all this animosity and act like adults. We have a job to do. _You_ have a job to do. Please fucking act like it”

 

Richie blinked.

 

“Sorry, Eddie”

 

“It’s okay, Rich. I’m just – you really screwed us over on Saturday. I had to get Bowers to stand in,” Eddie stopped talking to scrub his fists into his eye-sockets, before continuing, “and he’s … he can’t do it properly. He’s not – You do it…”

 

Richie blinked again.

 

“You can’t just not show up. You can’t do that to me, to _us”_ Eddie implored, eyes and eyebrows earnest as ever.

 

“I won’t, I won’t do it again, Eds, I promise”

 

From his current position, standing in the corner of the small office like a spare part, Richie thought that Eddie looked awfully small. He’d always been small, of course, a tiny firecracker threatening to explode in your hands and burn off your fingerprints, but this Eddie was not that Eddie. Past Eddie, _Richie’_ _s Eddie,_ didn’t have these eyes that looked permanently punched by tiredness, frown lines etched into his forehead, or shoulders that dropped when he thought no-one was looking. This Eddie, not-Richie’s-Eddie, made Richie’s heart thump with something past-compassion and not-quite-yearning. Sitting behind the desk was a black sweater clad, fully formed human being that Richie didn’t recognise, with glasses and wrinkles and a slightly wonky front left canine. It wasn’t wonky when Richie had known him, when he’d been Richie’s-Eddie, he’d have known, he’d stared at the sun in Eddie’s smile that many times.

 

Richie wanted to ask Eddie why his tooth was wonky, and why the skin around his nailbeds was red and raw, but he didn’t.

 

“S’that all?” is what Richie said instead, rubbing at his left bicep furiously, scratching a phantom-itch.

 

“Yeah, yeah, you can go. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Good work today. You work excellently with Mike”

 

Richie wanted to take advantage of this seemingly unguarded Eddie, sit down in the uncomfortable looking chair and rip his still beating heart out of his chest and serve it to Eddie on a platter.

 

_Why did you leave me?_

 

But he didn’t. Instead he waved his fingers at Eddie, an aborted attempt at a wave, and left the room.

 

* * *

 

Hamlet and Horatio haven’t spoken for fourteen years. Richie hasn’t spoken to Stan for fourteen years, and he can’t remember how to talk to his former-best-friend without causing him to roll his eyes. What makes this worse is that the pit of jealousy in Richie’s stomach grows ever stronger each time Stan stays behind after rehearsal for one-to-one sessions with Eddie.

 

Richie has never had a one-to-one session with Eddie. He knows he’s _going_ to have a one-to-one session, to work on the various soliloquys. He _knows_ this, and yet his gut still twists angrily every time Eddie dismisses them for the day, and Stan follows him back into his office. Smiling. Eddie smiles when he looks at Stan, but his mouth only twitches when he looks at Richie. It’s not a smile. It’s more like a grimace, but not quite as heated.

 

It all explodes before Richie realises he’d detonated.

 

“Why are you giving Horatio more attention than me? I’m supposed to be the lead!”

 

Richie holds his breath.

 

The rest of the cast filter out of the rehearsal space like liquid.

 

“Pardon?”

 

“I mean – I guess – No, you know what, I’m confused. I’m supposed to be the lead, and we’ve been rehearsing for nearly two weeks and we haven’t worked on my soliloquys yet”

 

Stan rolls his eyes. Richie wants to scream.

 

“Stop being a fucking child, Richie”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“You’re the lead. We all _know_ this, it’s not like we’ve forgotten, but that doesn’t mean that this whole production revolves around you”

 

“I just thought that–”

 

Stan strides over to where Richie was standing, and stands toe to toe with him. Faces close, breath mingling. They were close enough that Stan could headbutt him right now, if he wanted to. Richie doesn’t think he would.

 

“You don’t have a claim to his time anymore, Rich” Stan whispers, and it’s kind, his voice is kind and soft but the words burn through Richie’s skin like acid.

 

Richie steps backwards, burnt.

 

“Woah, woah woah, Stanely the fucking Manly, I never said _anything_ about that, this is purely professional”

 

“Is it?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“It doesn’t look very professional”

 

“Well it is!”

 

Neither of them say anything, just look at each other. Waiting for the other to strike.

 

* * *

 

_The sky is mottled with stars. Stan’s humming a song that Richie doesn’t recognise as they lie on the grass out the back of Richie’s apartment building._

_“You’re my best friend, you know”_

_“Aw, is this soft hours with Stan?”_

_Stan huffs out a laugh and smacks Richie on the stomach._

_“Yeah, yeah it fuckin’ is”_

_“You’re my best friend, too” Richie replies, honest as the day is long._

_They don’t say anything else. They don’t have to._

* * *

“What happened to us?” Richie asks, not wanting to hear the answer that he’s sure Stan is going to give him, anyway.

 

“There hasn’t been an ‘us’ since you ignored me when Eddie left,” Stan replies, eyes downcast, “I missed you, Rich, I rang you for two fucking years, of course I missed you. But this petulant child isn’t you. You need to sort it out. You can’t draw him in when you’re pushing everyone else out”

 

Only then does Richie remember that Eddie has been in the room the entire time, that Eddie has heard everything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Catch me on tumblr @ queen-sock 
> 
> <3

**Author's Note:**

> i ? have ? another ? effing ? story ?
> 
> shock horror.
> 
> I've made the decision to delete The 14:23 from FL to ME for now. I am so NOT feeling that story, so what I think I'm going to do is compile it into a big one-shot and post it whenever it's done. But I don't like my characterisation or anything and it makes me cringe that it was just sat here so I deleted it.
> 
> SO I'M GOING TO WRITE THIS INSTEAD!! I have a degree in english literature and history, so I know Some Things™ about Shakespeare and drama and stuff, but I'm not a theatre kid so I'll probably get stuff wrong. Please do let me know if I make any real cock-ups and I'll fix them!!
> 
> I hope you enjoy this. I've got a big ol' plan for it. 
> 
> <3


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